PASSHE Institutions Merging

[ironmaniup]

Ok, I've been wrong before. However, I'm not totally sold. If there is no added value why do top students continue to enroll. My impression is that it's a hyper-intensive experience and that alone will, in most cases, help students in their post-college endeavors whether it's further education or job-related.

Success depends on what the student does with the opportunity. The perks and extra attention gives an engaged student an advantage with more opportunity and lifestyle. Generally the HC students are mostly all the engaged type that want to learn for its own sake, and will probably do pretty good regardless of the circumstance. Then again, I've seen students gain just as much on their own, with the same positive attitude. I think in the end the HC helps the engaged students find each other quicker, and provides a community for them - that is huge, just to avoid a dorm full of Blutoskys and the 300 student Art 101 class. But if you view college as just a set of requirements to complete, its not necessary.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Success depends on what the student does with the opportunity. The perks and extra attention gives an engaged student an advantage with more opportunity and lifestyle. Generally the HC students are mostly all the engaged type that want to learn for its own sake, and will probably do pretty good regardless of the circumstance. Then again, I've seen students gain just as much on their own, with the same positive attitude. I think in the end the HC helps the engaged students find each other quicker, and provides a community for them - that is huge, just to avoid a dorm full of Blutoskys and the 300 student Art 101 class. But if you view college as just a set of requirements to complete, its not necessary.

Ironic part is IUP was booming financially when it had a whole campus full of dopes with 875 SAT scores. We still take plenty of said dopes -- just far less of them. Not by choice, of course.

IUP HC students are getting harder to find. If they qualify for IUP HC then they surely can get in to much better schools than IUP. With IUP's pricing soaring ... not a good mix.

[Fightingscot82]

Ironic part is IUP was booming financially when it had a whole campus full of dopes with 875 SAT scores. We still take plenty of said dopes -- just far less of them. Not by choice, of course.

IUP HC students are getting harder to find. If they qualify for IUP HC then they surely can get in to much better schools than IUP. With IUP's pricing soaring ... not a good mix.

I think that's a pretty good example of why IUP has lost 40% of its students in the last decade. Its not IUP's fault though. Just a lot more competition for a declining number of middle of the curve students.

[complaint_hopeful]

They did an Integration Workshop today to update on it.

Through June 20th, they've received 738 comments. They marked 34 as Plan Actionable. The rest...non-actionable or viewpoint.

[complaint_hopeful]

Pa. state university chancellor largely silent on NCAA but cites moves to address merger worries

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/ed...s/202106300083

[IUPNation]

Ironic part is IUP was booming financially when it had a whole campus full of dopes with 875 SAT scores. We still take plenty of said dopes -- just far less of them. Not by choice, of course.

IUP HC students are getting harder to find. If they qualify for IUP HC then they surely can get in to much better schools than IUP. With IUP's pricing soaring ... not a good mix.

[ironmaniup]

I think that's a pretty good example of why IUP has lost 40% of its students in the last decade. Its not IUP's fault though. Just a lot more competition for a declining number of middle of the curve students.

Well, if we could have kept it to 20-25% or so things would be fine. basically 1000 students more. There are endless discussions as to where these students went - gone to SRU or now getting into Pitt or PSU seem like the best guess.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Well, if we could have kept it to 20-25% or so things would be fine. basically 1000 students more. There are endless discussions as to where these students went - gone to SRU or now getting into Pitt or PSU seem like the best guess.

Valid. Thing is most of on here live in the past regarding this topic. In our minds IUP is still high and mighty (enrollment-wise, etc.). Somewhere along the way over the past decade (or so) IUP has lost a lot of its previous 'it' factor to this generation.

These are the children of the party era at IUP. Our glowing reputation doesn't help matters.

[complaint_hopeful]

So supposedly they are going to phase the Academic Program Array implementation and clarify the mode of delivery for classes more in the next draft of this.

Not sure if these will be good or bad (on the academic array part)...but they attribute this to feedback.

[Fightingscot82]

So supposedly they are going to phase the Academic Program Array implementation and clarify the mode of delivery for classes more in the next draft of this.

Not sure if these will be good or bad (on the academic array part)...but they attribute this to feedback.

It allows them to spread out the related faculty job cuts and have more time to be Middle States (accreditation) compliant. They still have not shared requested info for the NCAA to make a decision. I think athletics is so far from the minds of anyone at PASSHE or on the BOG that its been overlooked, even though their enrollment is critical to both plans. I'd also like to see the plans have escape clauses for the schools. For example, if Mansfield's enrollment rebounds to the point that it can survive on its own again (unlikely but hypothetical) there should be a process or a benchmark for that. Can't give some schools immunity if the affected ones don't get an escape plan.

[ironmaniup]

It allows them to spread out the related faculty job cuts and have more time to be Middle States (accreditation) compliant. They still have not shared requested info for the NCAA to make a decision. I think athletics is so far from the minds of anyone at PASSHE or on the BOG that its been overlooked, even though their enrollment is critical to both plans. I'd also like to see the plans have escape clauses for the schools. For example, if Mansfield's enrollment rebounds to the point that it can survive on its own again (unlikely but hypothetical) there should be a process or a benchmark for that. Can't give some schools immunity if the affected ones don't get an escape plan.

You can't have an escape plan when you admit at least one school in the triad is already sustainable by itself and that the merge is a net positive for PASSHE students. How would Bloom escape ?

[Fightingscot82]

You can't have an escape plan when you admit at least one school in the triad is already sustainable by itself and that the merge is a net positive for PASSHE students. How would Bloom escape ?

Fair point. I think the bottom line is that there should be some financial forecasting available. Revenue can have conservative assumptions about state appropriation and population projections for where they've historically enrolled students. Expense projections are much easier to forecast since a lot of it is long-term in union contracts and bond debt.

Related to finances, the state budget doesn't increase PASSHE's appropriation but does give an extra $50 million specifically for the merger plans. Unsure why - that's millions more than Greenstein said this thing would cost. But that also means schools don't see any additional state revenue with promotions, raises, and cost increases starting today.

[iupgroundhog]

You can't have an escape plan when you admit at least one school in the triad is already sustainable by itself and that the merge is a net positive for PASSHE students. How would Bloom escape ?

There is no escaping this. Once done, it's done. There is 0% chance the non-dominant schools will rebound.

[complaint_hopeful]

There is no escaping this. Once done, it's done. There is 0% chance the non-dominant schools will rebound.

Yep. These schools are having back-end IT systems merged into 1 in some areas. They're sharing employees. There's no going back to standalone. It would take millions of dollars and a lot of time to undo this once done.

The funny thing is, I could see Pennsylvania eventually saying...Hey there's 4 less schools now. We can cut funding more! Maybe not within the near future, but one day that could happen.

[complaint_hopeful]

Fair point. I think the bottom line is that there should be some financial forecasting available. Revenue can have conservative assumptions about state appropriation and population projections for where they've historically enrolled students. Expense projections are much easier to forecast since a lot of it is long-term in union contracts and bond debt.

Related to finances, the state budget doesn't increase PASSHE's appropriation but does give an extra $50 million specifically for the merger plans. Unsure why - that's millions more than Greenstein said this thing would cost. But that also means schools don't see any additional state revenue with promotions, raises, and cost increases starting today.

I've been saying from the start that this thing would cost millions and millions to do. There are aspects of this that cost several million for consulting per Triad. And I don't even know how many consulting firms are being used. I question, if they just used that money to pay down debt...what would have happened.

It's easy to see costs in this and much harder to find savings. That's basically why Georgia ended up saving less than 1%.

Now, when they do accounting for this to figure out ROI...will they count this $50 million from the state? PASSHE tends to do some creative things to make their percentages look good.