PASSHE Institutions Merging

[Fightingscot82]

Wow. Clarion and Edinboro are in bad shape...which is likely why the Chancellor is rushing the timeframe. Negative 6 million in reserves is terrible.

Yet, they put Clarion's President in charge of the West Triad.

Edinboro got caught with its pants down. Their sustainability plan involved drawing down their reserves by further reducing enrollment via much higher admission standards and hopefully replacing it with better retention. They were going to thread the needle financially. Then covid blew up everything.

[IUPNation]

Wow. Clarion and Edinboro are in bad shape...which is likely why the Chancellor is rushing the timeframe. Negative 6 million in reserves is terrible.

Yet, they put Clarion's President in charge of the West Triad.

[complaint_hopeful]

Edinboro got caught with its pants down. Their sustainability plan involved drawing down their reserves by further reducing enrollment via much higher admission standards and hopefully replacing it with better retention. They were going to thread the needle financially. Then covid blew up everything.

I'd like to see the impact of covid on schools quantified financially. Like I know it costed students. But, also the schools got 2 rounds of stimulus.

It looks like Cal U finished $5.7 million positive.

Are schools that were already failing just using covid as an excused?

Looks like the state will raise funding by about $50 million a year for 4 years. No bailout of housing debt from what I can tell. I wonder what the effects of this will be?

[complaint_hopeful]

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/ed...s/202106250142

[iupgroundhog]

Well, not exactly. Here's a secret, though, and that's that IUP is not doing so well. Shhh! Don't tell anybody. PASSHE needs a plan for IUP.

North of I-80 would be Edinboro, Clarion, and Mansfield. Lock Haven was actually moving in the right direction when this all started. And I think that $53 million in reserves could have gone a long way for a 3000 student school. If they would have done the right-sizing for LHU it would have been better off than most of them. LHU didn't have to be a 4k-5k student school. It's fine as a 3k student school. If greenstein would have stuck to the LHU-Mansfield integration it would have been fine and strengthened LHU. Adding Bloom into it when SRU resisted was greenstein's big mistake. There was no reason to do that. He was just moving schools around like chess pieces.

[iupgroundhog]

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/ed...s/202106250142

Greenstein and the rest of the crew are clearly mismanaging this entire process. The NCAA question is pure BS. The specifics need to be made public. It is inexcusable.

If the BOG makes the wrong decision and approves this folly of a plan that will not be the end of it. I think the resistence is becoming too great and this is not not going to fly.

[IUPNation]

Well, not exactly. Here's a secret, though, and that's that IUP is not doing so well. Shhh! Don't tell anybody. PASSHE needs a plan for IUP.

North of I-80 would be Edinboro, Clarion, and Mansfield. Lock Haven was actually moving in the right direction when this all started. And I think that $53 million in reserves could have gone a long way for a 3000 student school. If they would have done the right-sizing for LHU it would have been better off than most of them. LHU didn't have to be a 4k-5k student school. It's fine as a 3k student school. If greenstein would have stuck to the LHU-Mansfield integration it would have been fine and strengthened LHU. Adding Bloom into it when SRU resisted was greenstein's big mistake. There was no reason to do that. He was just moving schools around like chess pieces.

IUP has alumni that can donate.

[Fightingscot82]

IUP has alumni that can donate.

But not new students to attend. Percentage wise IUP has lost nearly as much as Clarion and Edinboro. I'm interested in their debt and reserves numbers.

[ironmaniup]

But not new students to attend. Percentage wise IUP has lost nearly as much as Clarion and Edinboro. I'm interested in their debt and reserves numbers.

Well not quite, Of course it depends on how you count. certainly not in terms of new undergrads (precovid anyway), the percentage decreases aren't near as bad. IUP lost alot of potential students in the grad programs that relied on foreign students, in 2016 it became much more difficult to get student visas. Last year IUP went through significant layoffs/early retirements (i.e. right sizing), which is supposed to fix things for the next 5 years anyway, even expecting some more decline in enrollment. Reserves are getting low, and the main problematic debt is from the dorms which are not producing enough revenue. If that is fixed somehow, then IUP is in good shape.

Larger schools are more able to take enrollment loss, also, since you can still have programs. Some of the big programs, like Nursing are down from their peak, but still have plenty of students using the facilities. For a place like Clarion, losses can put you below the minimum number of students needed to pay the fixed costs of expensive programs. Going from 100 students to 70 is much different than going from 30 to 20.

[iupgroundhog]

Well not quite, Of course it depends on how you count. certainly not in terms of new undergrads (precovid anyway), the percentage decreases aren't near as bad. IUP lost alot of potential students in the grad programs that relied on foreign students, in 2016 it became much more difficult to get student visas. Last year IUP went through significant layoffs/early retirements (i.e. right sizing), which is supposed to fix things for the next 5 years anyway, even expecting some more decline in enrollment. Reserves are getting low, and the main problematic debt is from the dorms which are not producing enough revenue. If that is fixed somehow, then IUP is in good shape.

Larger schools are more able to take enrollment loss, also, since you can still have programs. Some of the big programs, like Nursing are down from their peak, but still have plenty of students using the facilities. For a place like Clarion, losses can put you below the minimum number of students needed to pay the fixed costs of expensive programs. Going from 100 students to 70 is much different than going from 30 to 20.

Yes. Economy of scale matters.

[boatcapt]

Well not quite, Of course it depends on how you count. certainly not in terms of new undergrads (precovid anyway), the percentage decreases aren't near as bad. IUP lost alot of potential students in the grad programs that relied on foreign students, in 2016 it became much more difficult to get student visas. Last year IUP went through significant layoffs/early retirements (i.e. right sizing), which is supposed to fix things for the next 5 years anyway, even expecting some more decline in enrollment. Reserves are getting low, and the main problematic debt is from the dorms which are not producing enough revenue. If that is fixed somehow, then IUP is in good shape.

Larger schools are more able to take enrollment loss, also, since you can still have programs. Some of the big programs, like Nursing are down from their peak, but still have plenty of students using the facilities. For a place like Clarion, losses can put you below the minimum number of students needed to pay the fixed costs of expensive programs. Going from 100 students to 70 is much different than going from 30 to 20.

Large schools do have more cushion when it comes to bleeding enrollment numbers, but that doesn't mean they can ignore the decline. If a bigger school is looking at sustained enrollment decline year after year and leadership either does nothing or what the do has no effect on the decline, that's a problem and indicates a school in trouble.

[iupgroundhog]

Well not quite, Of course it depends on how you count. certainly not in terms of new undergrads (precovid anyway), the percentage decreases aren't near as bad. IUP lost alot of potential students in the grad programs that relied on foreign students, in 2016 it became much more difficult to get student visas. Last year IUP went through significant layoffs/early retirements (i.e. right sizing), which is supposed to fix things for the next 5 years anyway, even expecting some more decline in enrollment. Reserves are getting low, and the main problematic debt is from the dorms which are not producing enough revenue. If that is fixed somehow, then IUP is in good shape.

Larger schools are more able to take enrollment loss, also, since you can still have programs. Some of the big programs, like Nursing are down from their peak, but still have plenty of students using the facilities. For a place like Clarion, losses can put you below the minimum number of students needed to pay the fixed costs of expensive programs. Going from 100 students to 70 is much different than going from 30 to 20.

However, that's just the survivalist approach. We want IUP to flourish.

As a result of Trump policies, grad enrollment may have been affected. But IUP has been sustained by graduate enrollment for the past decade, The discussion is mainly about undergrad enrollment and recruitment. When I attended IUP in the late 70's and early 80's IUP's enrollment was 12, 500. And it was capped at 12, 500. The acceptance rate was good and that constantly pushed the average scores of incoming students up. Not only was IUP by far the biggest of the schools it was also the most competitive by a lot. Plus, at that time IUP had a grad school but it wasn't as big in relative terms as it is today.

Today, IUP enrollment is hovering around 75-80% of what it was when PASSHE came into existence. Meanwhile, the rest of the schools are bigger than they were then even after counting the enrollment declines.

Rather than focusing on mere survival, the state should look at IUP as a resource to be developed. That's actually in everybody's interest.

[complaint_hopeful]

Greenstein and the rest of the crew are clearly mismanaging this entire process. The NCAA question is pure BS. The specifics need to be made public. It is inexcusable.

If the BOG makes the wrong decision and approves this folly of a plan that will not be the end of it. I think the resistence is becoming too great and this is not not going to fly.

I think the BOG will approve it. Agreed that they shouldn't. I just think they don't care about public outcry.

I believe I read that the Cal U Trustees took their concerns to Greenstein and some of the BOG. In the PASSHE response to the reporter, they gave their canned response that the Integration gives the Universities the best chance to survive.

On the NCAA thing...I could see them having questions. It's very unclear how this will work..

As far as the public outcry...I think you'll see them make some cosmetic changes to the plan to make it look like they took the feedback. Ie They'll maybe phase parts of the plan a little longer, etc. Thus might backfire and create more cost and confusion.

The major issues are the plan doesn't save much. Costs a lot to implement. Doesn't save students tuition dollars. There's terrible pr. And many unanswered questions like accreditation and the ncaa.

If this were an airplane being built, an analogy would be that theyre having trouble getting it to even fly 100 feet. But PASSHE is trying to fly over an ocean.

[complaint_hopeful]

For anyone who thinks this won't be approved...from the PA budget:

'This budget also provides $50 million in ARP funding for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) to support the redesign and growth of the system to make a college education more affordable and accessible for students. The investment is part of a commitment totaling $200 million over four years for PASSHE.'

https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom...state-history/

[ironmaniup]

However, that's just the survivalist approach. We want IUP to flourish.Kopchick hall for instance

As a result of Trump policies, grad enrollment may have been affected. But IUP has been sustained by graduate enrollment for the past decade, The discussion is mainly about undergrad enrollment and recruitment. When I attended IUP in the late 70's and early 80's IUP's enrollment was 12, 500. And it was capped at 12, 500. The acceptance rate was good and that constantly pushed the average scores of incoming students up. Not only was IUP by far the biggest of the schools it was also the most competitive by a lot. Plus, at that time IUP had a grad school but it wasn't as big in relative terms as it is today.

Today, IUP enrollment is hovering around 75-80% of what it was when PASSHE came into existence. Meanwhile, the rest of the schools are bigger than they were then even after counting the enrollment declines.

Rather than focusing on mere survival, the state should look at IUP as a resource to be developed. That's actually in everybody's interest.

There has also been a huge rearrangement - 1 less college, departments shuffled around and merged, and a few other things. For now the enrollment bleeding is stopped, with a decent size incoming class registered. Interestingly, retention was better last year than it has been for a while - but its hard to judge with all of the on-line courses. The interesting question is whether it will hold up with the fewer support people, and a full campus in fall. There's a plan, its not made everyone happy, There is alot to criticize about it, but there are good things going on. Kopchick Hall for instance - https://www.iup.edu/news-item.aspx?id=294520