State System could give more aid
spokesman Kenn Marshall said. “The increased limits can be applied immediately so the additional scholarship funds would be available for the spring semester.”
In the past seven years, the system’s student enrollment has dropped from 119,513 to 102,301 — a loss of 14 percent, or more than 17,000 students.
Officials blame declining high school graduate numbers, especially in western Pennsylvania counties hit hard by population loss. But some fear that rising costs are emptying seats, too — especially on campuses serving large numbers of low-income and first-generation college students.
The State System, in the midst of an effort to redesign itself, has been moving of late toward giving campuses greater latitude to set prices, higher or lower, depending on the cost to deliver specific programs and student demand.
In fact, a consultant went so far as to suggest in July of last year that the system board end a decades-long practice of setting a single tuition rate. This year’s base rate is $7,492 for in-state undergraduates.
The consultant, the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, recommended that the board instead adopt a yearly tuition range within which schools could price themselves based on their missions and campus needs.
No action on that proposal has occurred. But the financial aid change appears consistent with that thinking.
“Perhaps what’s most important about this change is that each university will be able to decide whether to expand the amount of financial aid it offers and set the guidelines for doing so,” said Karen Whitney, the interim State System chancellor.
She said the system intends to give campuses greater freedom in day-do-day decision-making.
“That is a sea change,” she said.
The State System is the lowest-priced public university option in Pennsylvania. Even so, total costs can vary several thousand dollars a year by campus once fees and other charges set by individual schools are included.
Last year, the total published cost to attend across the system, including room and board, ranged from $17,789 to $23,964
Government grants and loans, as well as dollars from other sources including the campuses themselves, are intended to keep college within reach for State System students. Students on some of those campuses are believed to be more vulnerable to price hikes than others.
A 2012 market study by Maguire Associates of Concord, Mass., divided the system universities into three clusters based on the share of students with incomes low enough to qualify for a Pell grant or Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency grant as well as the average aid award on those campuses.
It found that Cheyney, Clarion, Edinboro, Lock Haven and Mansfield served the neediest students. Bloomsburg, Shippensburg and West Chester had the lowest share of aid recipients and smallest aid packages.
California, East Stroudsburg, Indiana, Kutztown, Millersville and Slippery Rock were in between.
Wording of the scholarship resolution approved Nov. 13 gave limited detail about how schools may direct any additional aid funds. Need-based aid can only be offered to in-state residents, though merit aid can be directed to both those students and others from outside Pennsylvania, Mr. Marshall, the State System spokesman, said.
The resolution also did not indicate if schools can decide to further raise prices, specifically to direct larger aid packages at certain students.
At Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the largest of Western Pennsylvania’s five system schools, it’s not yet clear how the new aid latitude will be used.
“We are certainly pleased about this opportunity to offer an increase in merit and need-based scholarships,” spokeswoman Michelle Fryling said. “We don’t know exactly how it’s going to be structured.”
Ken Mash, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, sees merit in the revised policy, both from the perspective of expanding education opportunity and the campuses’ bottom line.
“From a business perspective, it makes some sense to allow those students to come, be educated. You get whatever revenue they are providing,” he said. “You might otherwise not be getting any of that money.”