PASSHE Institutions Merging

[IUPNation]

Today's Will Bunch piece from the Philadelphia Inquirer on the current state of PASSHE affairs. . Couched in partisan terms as well it should be. It's interesting that he ties the timeline of enrollment declines to former Gov. Corbett's cuts.

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/...-20210506.html

Conservatives hate Will Bunch.

He failed to mention how the Stste Related vs PSSHE setup also drives the problem.

[IUPNation]

Yeah I don't understand it either but its the place to be now. Its like SRU now has the swagger that IUP had 20 years ago.

[IUPNation]

Well, it's not the 80s or 90s any more. Kids seem to like it there now. Odd ... yes, but, nonetheless. The giant shift in the numbers is the factual proof.

We'll see if it lasts. Cal had a huge spike there for a bit and then went back down. But, SRU has a much nicer town than Cal. SRU has some cool bars and such now that never existed back in the 'dry town' days of 20 years ago. It's also a much nicer campus than it used to be.

[Fightingscot82]

One interesting thing that could help enrollment is a lot of students took gap years because of covid. Now if a lot is hundreds or thousands...I don't know.

What's interesting is that gap years for high school grads usually involve working, travel, or exploratory classes at a community college. With the pandemic, none of that happened. Did they just stay home? I remember reading an article that a lot of gap years were really just students whose families had income insecurity instead of the traditional motivation for a gap year.

[Fightingscot82]

IUP did the cuts this year, according to Driscoll there are no major cuts next year, and enrollment is in line with expectations

For those curious, IUP announced future job cuts - they'll be phased out over time. As faculty leave for various reasons the positions won't be filled unless needed for students to finish their degrees. They've stopped accepting new students for those programs and once those students are gone they'll finish off everyone else.

My concern for IUP is that their recruiting edge seems to be neutralized. IUP was the regional research university at a state college price for decades. They also had an edge getting kids from the eastern half of the state. IUP doesn't market itself as a research university, a disservice to itself. IUP's value proposition is the R1/D1 experience for those who can't make the state-relateds work due to waitlisting, location, or cost. But they market themselves like any other school. They've also got to get creative with finding students. Figure out some sort of competitive advantage over West Chester & Millersville as well as the other similar publics around the PA perimeter (YSU, Kent, Ohio, WVU, Towson, Rutgers Camden, Binghamton, etc.) as well as the regional privates taking students from them.

[complaint_hopeful]

One interesting thing that could help enrollment is a lot of students took gap years because of covid. Now if a lot is hundreds or thousands...I don't know.

[complaint_hopeful]

IUP did the cuts this year, according to Driscoll there are no major cuts next year, and enrollment is in line with expectations

Since the semester just ended, the cuts would be happening over the next month or 2 right?

[Fightingscot82]

Is it expected to be in the 5 digits?

It already is

https://www.iup.edu/news-item.aspx?i...31&blogid=6121

[iupgroundhog]

IUP did the cuts this year, according to Driscoll there are no major cuts next year, and enrollment is in line with expectations

Is it expected to be in the 5 digits?

[ironmaniup]

There are so many moving parts in this. The layoffs at the schools are from the mandate to get back to 2010 student to faculty ratios and I believe is in the sustainability plans. This is happening whether the Integrations happen or not.

Then, there are the Integrations and their cost savings which will likely involve less employees...some lost through retirements they don't refill.

There are too many moving parts. How do you execute all of this in 1-2 years without quality tanking and losing students? This is high profile too...right out there in a lot of media. This has to hurt enrollment.

IUP did the cuts this year, according to Driscoll there are no major cuts next year, and enrollment is in line with expectations

[iupgroundhog]

Today's Will Bunch piece from the Philadelphia Inquirer on the current state of PASSHE affairs. . Couched in partisan terms as well it should be. It's interesting that he ties the timeline of enrollment declines to former Gov. Corbett's cuts.

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/...-20210506.html

[complaint_hopeful]

There are so many moving parts in this. The layoffs at the schools are from the mandate to get back to 2010 student to faculty ratios and I believe is in the sustainability plans. This is happening whether the Integrations happen or not.

Then, there are the Integrations and their cost savings which will likely involve less employees...some lost through retirements they don't refill.

There are too many moving parts. How do you execute all of this in 1-2 years without quality tanking and losing students? This is high profile too...right out there in a lot of media. This has to hurt enrollment.

[iupgroundhog]

Is this the socialist new site? https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/202.../past-m07.html

Funny that they have a photo of a building at the Univ. of Pgh. in the article.

It seems odd that some of the schools with the most faculty cuts aren't in the merger.
"The most cuts will happen at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), where 383 workers will lose their jobs, followed by Edinboro University with 236 and Shippensburg University with 185."

It's all pretty odd.

[Bart]

Political take on the state funding crisis that led to the situation we're all in: https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/...-20210506.html

I did see that a socialist news site actually spun the APSCUF faculty union president's comments as pro-consolidation and layoffs. Wow.

Is this the socialist new site? https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/202.../past-m07.html

It seems odd that some of the schools with the most faculty cuts aren't in the merger.
"The most cuts will happen at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), where 383 workers will lose their jobs, followed by Edinboro University with 236 and Shippensburg University with 185."

[Fightingscot82]

Political take on the state funding crisis that led to the situation we're all in: https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/...-20210506.html

I did see that a socialist news site actually spun the APSCUF faculty union president's comments as pro-consolidation and layoffs. Wow.