PASSHE Institutions Merging

[complaint_hopeful]

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.

Greenstein called the job cuts a false narrative as many are retiring.

But, say like General Ed Classes are merged Year 1. How do you communicate this to prospective students? Well you'll take these 3 classes on campus and your Math 101 will be online through Clarion. This seems like it will be really hard to understand.

And does it help accreditation? Or does it make it much more complex?

[boatcapt]

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.

Seems like this is nothing new. Individual schools also tend to hid behind the PASSHE school that is doing the worst to hide their own problems. For years that was Cheyney...Now its Mansfield and Clarion.

[complaint_hopeful]

Listening to the BOG Workshop. Some things that stood out:

-Lack of students speaking out against the Integration was big. Greenstein talked about how student engagement is hard to get nationally. It seemed like mainly employees calling in someone noted.
-We've put off our problems for too long as a system. We have to act now.
-There is a false narrative out there that they are laying a bunch of people off. Greenstein was pretty adament about this as the reductions are not mass layoffs. A lot of the loss is due to retirements and attrition. They've done everything they can to not lay people off.
-They did some financial analysis and with the stimulus funding and some other things...it improved.
-They did an economic impact study too. And the loss of students over the last nearly decade was way worse than the Integrations will be. (As less students equal less spending in the community). Going off of memory, they showed the Integrations are positive impact percentage wise. (The economic impact study is published - https://www.passhe.edu/SystemRedesig...act-(2021).pdf)
-The Student survey will come out in about a week.

[complaint_hopeful]

PASSHE has updated the implementation plans:

University Integrations | PA State System of Higher Education (passhe.edu)

[Fightingscot82]

A few thoughts:
- still no details on unanswered questions on academic accreditation
- still no details on what happens if NCAA puts kibosh on three athletic departments
- still no plan to reduce price (which they say is the clear driver of enrollment decline)
- a goal is to grow enrollment overall by 8%? without dropping price that ain't happening
- still talking about 25% cost savings by offering more sections of courses via integration partners without any data suggesting that is a primary barrier (its actually students running out of money)
- some of the integration will take YEARS. The goal to integrate the alumni databases is August 2026.

[complaint_hopeful]

1. You meet in a physical classroom with other students to participate together in online lectures and activities taught by a professor who is either online or live on another campus

[Fightingscot82]

1. You meet in a physical classroom with other students to participate together in online lectures and activities taught by a professor who is either online or live on another campus

That's basically the full gamut of what goes on now lol. When my parents attended Edinboro in the early 70s, there were growing pains and they didn't have enough professors to teach enough sections. Adjunct & part-time weren't a thing back then. So they had CCTV set up in some rooms and students would watch the lecture live from another room on campus. Kind of a 'back to the future' plan. Its not ideal - those rooms would have to be monitored somehow, right?

In grad school, I took an in person class at Edinboro in a video conference classroom with a group I believe in Clearfield (maybe at the Lock Haven facility). They had the (advanced for the time) setup that when you spoke, you pushed a button on the table and the cameras found your seat to broadcast your face to the virtual group. It was alright but a) we were all working adults and b) there was no way for the professor to spend individual time with students attending remotely. Those folks all seemed to know each other too (I believe they were all teachers from the same district). The dynamic wasn't great and I felt my professor spent a lot of time regulating the technology.

[boatcapt]

A few thoughts:
- still no details on unanswered questions on academic accreditation
- still no details on what happens if NCAA puts kibosh on three athletic departments
- still no plan to reduce price (which they say is the clear driver of enrollment decline)
- a goal is to grow enrollment overall by 8%? without dropping price that ain't happening
- still talking about 25% cost savings by offering more sections of courses via integration partners without any data suggesting that is a primary barrier (its actually students running out of money)
- some of the integration will take YEARS. The goal to integrate the alumni databases is August 2026.

There's always NAIA. I'm sure they would love to have four "new" programs in PA. Partner with Wilberforce, Shawnee State, Carlow, Rio Grande, Point Park and Penn State-Schulykill and form a tight little 10 team conference in Ohio and PA.

[complaint_hopeful]

That's basically the full gamut of what goes on now lol. When my parents attended Edinboro in the early 70s, there were growing pains and they didn't have enough professors to teach enough sections. Adjunct & part-time weren't a thing back then. So they had CCTV set up in some rooms and students would watch the lecture live from another room on campus. Kind of a 'back to the future' plan. Its not ideal - those rooms would have to be monitored somehow, right?

In grad school, I took an in person class at Edinboro in a video conference classroom with a group I believe in Clearfield (maybe at the Lock Haven facility). They had the (advanced for the time) setup that when you spoke, you pushed a button on the table and the cameras found your seat to broadcast your face to the virtual group. It was alright but a) we were all working adults and b) there was no way for the professor to spend individual time with students attending remotely. Those folks all seemed to know each other too (I believe they were all teachers from the same district). The dynamic wasn't great and I felt my professor spent a lot of time regulating the technology.

Well a lot of students that pay to live on-site are used to having their professor physically in the classroom they are in. I think not having that is going to be a shock to some. It's basically like a distance ed class viewing party.

[complaint_hopeful]

A few thoughts:
- still no details on unanswered questions on academic accreditation
- still no details on what happens if NCAA puts kibosh on three athletic departments
- still no plan to reduce price (which they say is the clear driver of enrollment decline)
- a goal is to grow enrollment overall by 8%? without dropping price that ain't happening
- still talking about 25% cost savings by offering more sections of courses via integration partners without any data suggesting that is a primary barrier (its actually students running out of money)
- some of the integration will take YEARS. The goal to integrate the alumni databases is August 2026.

As far as cost:
Page 201 (West)- For Revenue Assumptions -
1% enrollment growth and 1% tuition and fee increase. So they forecast increases.

But, in another part (Page 23 - West) -
'One of the primary goals of the integration is to make higher education more affordable. Specifically, one integration goal is to create degree pathways that reduce the total average cost of degree attainment by as much as 25%. This goal does not assume primarily a reduction in tuition, but incorporates opportunities such as reductions in time to degree attainment due to expanded course option availability, high school dual enrollments, and online enrollments, lower student fees, additional fundraising achievements, space utilization improvements, reduced operating expenditures, enhanced grant funding, more federal work study opportunities, working with community partners to reimburse student wages off campus and expanded use of open educational resources to reduce student costs for course materials.'

[complaint_hopeful]

We talked about closing schools:

Cease operations at selected universities Requires legislative action and between $100 million to $287 million per university, for a total of $660 million to offset closing costs.

From Page 41 of West Plan.

[complaint_hopeful]

A few thoughts:
- still no details on unanswered questions on academic accreditation
- still no details on what happens if NCAA puts kibosh on three athletic departments
- still no plan to reduce price (which they say is the clear driver of enrollment decline)
- a goal is to grow enrollment overall by 8%? without dropping price that ain't happening
- still talking about 25% cost savings by offering more sections of courses via integration partners without any data suggesting that is a primary barrier (its actually students running out of money)
- some of the integration will take YEARS. The goal to integrate the alumni databases is August 2026.

State System final university merger plan promises no campus closures but is silent on NCAA, accreditation | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[Fightingscot82]

As far as cost:
Page 201 (West)- For Revenue Assumptions -
1% enrollment growth and 1% tuition and fee increase. So they forecast increases.

But, in another part (Page 23 - West) -
'One of the primary goals of the integration is to make higher education more affordable. Specifically, one integration goal is to create degree pathways that reduce the total average cost of degree attainment by as much as 25%. This goal does not assume primarily a reduction in tuition, but incorporates opportunities such as reductions in time to degree attainment due to expanded course option availability, high school dual enrollments, and online enrollments, lower student fees, additional fundraising achievements, space utilization improvements, reduced operating expenditures, enhanced grant funding, more federal work study opportunities, working with community partners to reimburse student wages off campus and expanded use of open educational resources to reduce student costs for course materials.'

A lot of that can be filed under "why wasn't this being done already?" - and I get what they're saying but they don't have any data to suggest that any of these interventions (or even the completion time issue) are the "cost of degree attainment" issue. The primary reason students leave PASSHE is money - either they run out of ways to pay/continue or the game of finding money every semester makes them quit. Course availability should help with completion, especially when a student falls behind. Most often this is from changing a major and having to retake courses. When cost was much lower, students would take summer courses to make up lost ground but now just extend their stay.

The primary reason they aren't attending from the start is also money - the cost isn't low enough to convince them to buy in place of the state-related branches or the privates throwing around 50% off coupons.

Similarly to how the per-credit tuition model hurt the students most likely to finish on time, none of these interventions help these students much. They're already coming in with dual enrollment credits, more merit based aid, etc.

[complaint_hopeful]

A lot of that can be filed under "why wasn't this being done already?" - and I get what they're saying but they don't have any data to suggest that any of these interventions (or even the completion time issue) are the "cost of degree attainment" issue. The primary reason students leave PASSHE is money - either they run out of ways to pay/continue or the game of finding money every semester makes them quit. Course availability should help with completion, especially when a student falls behind. Most often this is from changing a major and having to retake courses. When cost was much lower, students would take summer courses to make up lost ground but now just extend their stay.

The primary reason they aren't attending from the start is also money - the cost isn't low enough to convince them to buy in place of the state-related branches or the privates throwing around 50% off coupons.

Similarly to how the per-credit tuition model hurt the students most likely to finish on time, none of these interventions help these students much. They're already coming in with dual enrollment credits, more merit based aid, etc.

Yep. You don't need an Integration to do those things. As is the case with most of this. Schools could work together without this all. Schools could even share classes.

The finances in the West look pretty bleak. Even with the Integration and optimistic assumptions of cost savings/enrollment gains...it's going to be quite some years before it's sustainable. I was going to cite examples from the Integration Plan of this, but I don't have the energy right now.

[IUPNation]

There's always NAIA. I'm sure they would love to have four "new" programs in PA. Partner with Wilberforce, Shawnee State, Carlow, Rio Grande, Point Park and Penn State-Schulykill and form a tight little 10 team conference in Ohio and PA.