BELT TIGHTENING AHEAD
Pennsylvania’s state universities are told to cut back on adjuncts and reduce other expenses.
As finances grow tighter at Pennsylvania’s state universities, Chancellor Daniel Greenstein this week told schools to curtail the use of adjuncts, combine underenrolled academic programs and work more closely together to reduce expenses across the 96,000-student system.
The directive follows a meeting with the 14 university presidents this week where they examined the financial plans for the schools and collectively decided action was needed, Mr. Greenstein said in an interview Thursday.
The universities have spent $127 million of their unrestricted reserves — savings accounts, essentially — to balance their budgets and complete projects since 201516. Too many of the universities have been drawing on the reserves, which now stand at $724 million, to balance their budgets, Mr. Greenstein said. That’s not sustainable in the long term, he said, and it’s also a red flag for accreditors who review the system’s financial viability.
A redesign of the system is underway, but Mr. Greenstein said: “We’re not going fast enough far enough.”
The system has been bleeding enrollment, dropping about 20% since 2010, and projections call for
the number of high school graduates to take an even steeper decline in the coming years.
In an email to campus leaders Thursday, Mr. Greenstein outlined five steps for the universities to take to improve their revenue picture.
• Curtail the use of adjuncts and temporary faculty. Use full-time faculty more and share them across institutions. If one school needs a course in physics but doesn’t have an available professor, instead of hiring an adjunct, send students in person or via online to a campus that has one, Mr. Greenstein said. Twenty-seven percent of the system’s faculty currently are adjuncts, he said.
• Consolidate low enrolled programs within a university or in collaboration across universities. Some programs, Mr. Greenstein said, aren’t attracting enough students to sustain themselves financially.
• Eliminate vacant positions unless the president deems them necessary. Presidents will review and decide on every vacant position, from janitorial services to high-ranking administrative positions. The system also will look at sharing more positions across universities to reduce costs, Mr. Greenstein said. If a financial officer is needed at one school, perhaps that employee could perform the job across campuses, he said.
• Improve the retention of students. The system loses nearly a quarter of its students after their freshman year, which hurts not only the students but also university budgets, Mr. Greenstein said. White students are retained at a higher rate than minority students, system data shows.
• Move toward a systemwide academic plan that avoids unnecessary duplication and fills needs across the state.
The announcement follows the release of Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget this month that seeks to give the system less of a funding increase than it requested. The system sought $20 million for its redesign; Mr. Wolf proposed nearly $13 million. It also asked for a 2% boost — nearly $10 million — in its yearly appropriation; Mr. Wolf proposed flat funding.
The governor, however, also proposed a new scholarship program that could help the system attract more students if it gets legislative approval. The $204 million tuition assistance program could enable about 25,000 students who attend system schools to graduate debt free. The money would come from the state Horse Race Development Trust Fund, which already has horse owners and farmers crying foul.
Mr. Greenstein didn’t have projections on how much the steps could save. It will depend on how fully schools embrace the plan and participate, he said. The goal is for the universities to balance their budgets without drawing from reserves, without hurting the student experience, he said.
The steps, he said, are meant to encourage greater collaboration across the universities, which include Bloomsburg, California, Clarion, Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Slippery Rock, Shippensburg and West Chester.
Not every school is struggling. West Chester, the largest in the system with nearly 17,700 students, has continued to grow. Cheyney University, which mounted a successful fight last year to retain its accreditation after years of falling enrollment, also had an enrollment increase this year.