Redesign plan endorsed by system’s board

Plans to combine six state-owned universities into two new institutions is moving forward.

During a special meeting Wednesday morning, the board of governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education voted to approve a pair of proposed integration plans.

The vote opened a 60day public comment period, with a final vote scheduled for July and implementation taking place in 2022.

The plans would see Bloomsburg, Mansfield and Lock Haven universities in northern Pennsylvania merge into one institution and California, Clarion and Edinboro in western Pennsylvania merge into another.

All six campuses would remain open, with integrated faculty, curriculum and enrollment strategies.

Kutztown University would not be involved in the consolidations but could suffer job losses in the overall system cost-cutting.

It is estimated the changes will save $18.4 million after five years through reductions in leadership, management and support staff.

The education landscape

The plan to combine schools is part of a major redesign of the state system, aimed at dealing with dropping enrollment, rising student debt and ongoing financial struggles at many of the system’s schools.

During a presentation the preceded Wednesday’s vote, system Chancellor Dan Greenstein said the plan isn’t just about trying to save money, it’s a way to make the system more useful and accessible to students and to ensure its strength.

Greenstein called a public state system of colleges “the engine for social mobility and economic development.” It’s how Pennsylvania will meet the need for the “jobs of today” that require a college education, he added.

Those jobs are available, he said, but not enough adults have the education needed to fill them.

To make sure that gap is being filled and that everyone has an opportunity to be the ones filling it, Greenstein said, the state system needs to continue to be affordable while providing quality educations.

“It ensures that those pathways to opportunity are available to everyone, irrespective of their ZIP codes, of their race, of their background,” he said of having an affordable state system. “But we are losing our affordability advantage. Pennsylvania is losing that available pathway to opportunity.”

Combining schools will do much to help the system meet the needs of current and future students, Greenstein said.

By joining forces, each school will be able to offer more programs and services, Greenstein said. With dropping enrollments, colleges typically are forced to cut programs and services, which then leads to further enrollment decreases.

“It creates a vicious cycle,” Greenstein said. “In a system, we have an opportunity to interrupt that cycle.”

By combining schools, three institutions would become a single powerhouse, he said.

Students will be able to choose from programs and classes offered at any of the three schools, many times using virtual learning to join classes at other campuses.

Greenstein said that he knows that not everyone will be happy about the plans.

But, he added, the system needs to change direction if it hopes to survive. It can’t keep doing the same things and expect the results to differ.

“We cannot, we must not, remain the same,” he said.

Ample pushback

The consolidation plans are receiving pushback.

During Wednesday’s meeting, which was held virtually, state Superior Court Judge Mary Jane Bowes, who chairs the Bloomsburg Board of Trustees, said she has significant concerns about the financial pieces of the plan.

She said Bloomsburg is currently stable financially, but the two schools it would combine with are not.

Lock Haven has not yet right-sized its staff, a mandate that went out to all schools in the system, she said. Mansfield has not balanced its budget and carries $6 million in annual debt service payments.

Bowes said that Bloomsburg can’t take on those liabilities.

“We don’t want Bloomsburg to disintegrate under this plan,” she said.

Bowes said the state needs to commit $100 million of the next five years to make sure consolidations are successful.

Kyle Schleck, a student at Lock Haven, said the majority of students are opposed to the plan, despite claims from Greenstein and other PASSHE leaders that students support consolidation.

“Our voices are not being heard,” he said.

Sam Claster, a professor at Edinboro, spoke on behalf of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties.

He said that he is on board for creating a healthier system, but doesn’t believe the current plan is the right one. There’s too many unanswered questions, Claster said.

It is still unclear how the consolidation will impact sports teams at the schools, Claster said. The NCAA has not yet ruled on whether each school will be able to keep their own teams.

Greenstein expressed confidence that all six schools would continue to have their own sports teams.

There are also concerns about schools having their statuses changed to branch campuses, Caster said.

Bloomsburg and California would be deemed the main campuses of the new institutions, and Claster said that makes students and staff at the other four schools worry about potential divestment or closure.

Greenstein and other PASSHE officials said that the chancellor and board of governors do not have the power to shut down schools. To do so they would need action from the state Legislature.

Claster also said there are concerns about how the consolidations, and the cuts to staff that will go with them, will impact the communities in which schools reside.

He cited a paper publicized this week by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center that said the economic impact of the plan on the state and local economies could be devastating.

“These local economies can simply not sustain this amount of economic damage,” he said.