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Were this any other year, the leader of Pennsylvania’s 10 state-owned universities simply might have needed to defend next year’s appropriation request and explain how it would enable a sixth consecutive tuition freeze.
Instead, State System of Higher Education Chancellor Daniel Greenstein faced sharp questioning from state senators Wednesday about a more sweeping matter beyond his control — a proposed unification of the state’s two- and four-year campuses and all the details about it yet to emerge from Gov. Josh Shapiro.
The governor’s new blueprint for higher education, part of his state budget proposal unveiled on Feb. 6, appeared to leave Greenstein at a loss to address specifics during the two-plus hour Appropriations Committee hearing in Harrisburg.
Would a 15% funding increase, as proposed by Shapiro, be divided evenly among the unified campuses? Would the 15 community colleges and 10 state-owned universities be equals?
Greenstein answered as he could, at one point offering to take out a calculator to estimate how the governor’s additional funding might enable in-state students to pay no more than $1,000 in tuition and fees per semester.
Asked by Sen. Lindsey Williams, (D-38th) how much that price cap would cost the state’s taxpayers, he replied: “I don’t have the details on the proposal …. If it’s a first-dollar scholarship, or a last-dollar scholarship. Does it include fees? Can it be contributed to room and board? Without any of those details, I cannot do the math.”
At other times during the hearing, he simply responded to questions from senators by saying, “I don’t know.”
Last fall, before Shapiro’s blueprint was revealed, the State System formally requested a 6.5% or $38 million increase in funding to $623.7 million for 2024-25. System officials said it would enable them to hold yearly in-state tuition for the sixth consecutive year at $7,716.
Asked how he would plan a budget for the State System if this were the last year before it and the 15 community colleges are unified, he replied, “I can only manage the system that I know exists.”
In remarks before and during Wednesday’s hearing, Greenstein encouraged the state Legislature to focus on the immediate 6.5% appropriation request and its potential to help the State System’s 83,000 students, regardless of a potential remake of Pennsylvania’s higher education system as soon as July 1.
“We have students. They are here right now. They need our help. We need to get them over the finish line. We need to get more in the door,” Greenstein said. “That’s where my focus is.”
Discussing the potential two- and four-year campus changes, and the fact the new fiscal year is only several months off, Williams at one point whispered to Greenstein from her seat, “That’s a very aggressive timeline.”
The chancellor also faced tough questions about the 2022 mergers of Clarion, California, and Edinboro universities into Pennsylvania Western University, as well as combining Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield universities into Commonwealth University.
PennWest, in particular, has struggled. As of fall 2023, it enrolled 11,305 students. That’s 22%, or 3,172 students, fewer than the 14,477 students that California, Clarion and Edinboro universities attracted in 2021 before they were merged.
Officials have said those Western Pennsylvania campuses are in a region hit hard by population loss in recent decades, compounding other issues about how the mergers were executed and the way the name changes have been promoted.
Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York, asked Greenstein how much money the mergers actually saved the state and students. She sounded dissatisfied with the specificity he offered on that question and on continuing enrollment losses.
It set off a back-and-forth between the two.
“The driving force behind the integration of these universities has been their long-term financial viability,” Phillips-Hill said. “And you’re struggling to articulate what their financials are for the last year and a half.”
“I don’t think I’m struggling,” responded Greenstein. “I’m trying to be precise.
“First point: The rationale for integration was not saving. It was to ensure that students at every one of the universities had access to a full breadth of academic programs. Those universities were shrinking to the point that they could only offer between 20 and 30 programs. Program breadth matters to students.
“They now have access to 80 or 90 programs, so that’s a big deal,” he added.
At another point in the hearing, Greenstein acknowledged that PennWest in some ways had a “very disappointing” first year but that faculty and staff had made herculean efforts to begin turning things around.
Shapiro’s proposed blueprint followed creation of a working group last year to seek reform of a higher education system he said is underfunded by the state, overpriced and competes for limited resources without adequate coordination.
In addition to PennWest and Commonwealth, the State System universities include Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester universities.
Bill Schackner is a TribLive reporter covering higher education. Raised in New England, he joined the Trib in 2022 after 29 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. Previously, he has written for newspapers in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. He can be reached at bschackner@triblive.com.
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