PASSHE Institutions Merging

[complaint_hopeful]

10 years ago many of these schools were at peak enrollment and I think they thought it was because of what they were doing and that it would continue...despite demographic evidence showing otherwise.

Then debt from $59 million buildings hurts. Their location isn't great. Neither is Clarions.

They are the most stable financially in that Triad and have way more students than the other 2 schools. But, overall they're not doing well financially either.

I just don't see how that Triad thrives. I think it's in trouble. It's going to sell online at probably the worst time ever to as the pandemic made every school an online school.

[IUPNation]

[complaint_hopeful]

That's just it. I think Wolf rejected year 2 of the special funding.

But, wow $30 million up front costs! I knew they were high, but I wasn't thinking that hight. A decent bit of that likely goes to consultants.

People tend to think this is all savings and no costs.

This thing is going to take years to break even. The Wests chart showed break even was essentially off the chart as far as time. And that's with 2% enrollment growth. These schools generally lose enrollment year over year. How realistic is 2% growth?

What if they lose 5-10% in Year 1?

[IUPNation]

https://www.penncapital-star.com/blo...sities-to-two/

[complaint_hopeful]

https://www.penncapital-star.com/blo...sities-to-two/

[complaint_hopeful]

It will hurt everyone. Kutztown may lose 145 employees because of this merger. "A report by the nonpartisan PA Budget and Policy Center says the move could lead Kutztown to cut 16% of its employees, or 145 full-time workers." https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks...ign=user-share

IUP could lose 383 due to merger. https://www.indianagazette.com/news/...a8a6976ce.html

But Kutztown and IUP aren't losing employees because of the merger. The report is worded incorrectly. They're losing employees because the Chancellor mandated getting back to 2010 ratios. And schools are also losing employees in their sustainability plans.

If these mergers get shot down, they will all lose employees anyways. People are getting things confused and understandably so because passhe has several major variables changing at once.

I think this is inaccurate too -> The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education says the integration of six of its 14 universities into two institutions would save taxpayers millions of dollars over five years and cut tuition for many students.

This isn't going to save taxpayers money.

[complaint_hopeful]

Raging Chicken Media
@RCpress3h
"Yup, I just made her up." PASSHE Chancellor uses fictional stories of fictional students to make his case for massive layoffs & the consolidation of 6 universities into 2. https://youtu.be/7BTlLWBP9aI via
@YouTube

[Bart]

Job losses were coming whether through the redesign or not. The whole mandate to get things down to the 2010 staffing levels called for that. And it applies to schools outside the Triads.

I think I saw in one article that IUP might lose up to 400 employees. The community will DEFINATELY feel that.

I think the only way to avoid that would be for the state to give PASSHE higher funding.

It will hurt everyone. Kutztown may lose 145 employees because of this merger. "A report by the nonpartisan PA Budget and Policy Center says the move could lead Kutztown to cut 16% of its employees, or 145 full-time workers." https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks...ign=user-share

IUP could lose 383 due to merger. https://www.indianagazette.com/news/...a8a6976ce.html

[Fightingscot82]

Hypothetical - Say the NCAA rejects the athletics proposal and says...no these schools can't compete against each other in 1 conference. Then what happens? Is that enough to stop this?

Possibly. The data analysis done for the report found that athletes were roughly 10% of enrollment at each school and on most campus are the least likely group to transfer/drop out. That's why the report also says they plan to invest in athletics to increase enrollment.

Hypothetical 2 - Say middle states is like our decision will come next summer on if you can be accredited. What's the impact of that on this? Does that delay the timeframe? Does that stop this?

If they can't get accreditation then the fan is so full of sh*t the blades stop turning. Without accreditation, the school can't accept federal financial aid for its students and students' credits are far less likely to transfer. Now there are state universities in far worse financial shape and they've kept accreditation *cough* Cheyney *cough*

[complaint_hopeful]

Hypothetical - Say the NCAA rejects the athletics proposal and says...no these schools can't compete against each other in 1 conference. Then what happens? Is that enough to stop this?

Hypothetical 2 - Say middle states is like our decision will come next summer on if you can be accredited. What's the impact of that on this? Does that delay the timeframe? Does that stop this?

[Fightingscot82]

This one says 2 dissenters. Note that one of them cites slowing the process down to receive input from the NCAA. I know everybody is assuming no problems with that but it's not done and it better get done real soon. Greenstein nor the BOG care about that. Pretty sure they don't.

In a general but significant sense, their exuberance and excitement about the process seem entirely misplaced. Look, this is not a good thing. It's a bad thing that has resulted from bad things. Everybody would much rather be independent and not have to deal with this stuff. That these people find it "exciting" really worries me.

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/0...now-opens.html

Agree, but they need the NCAA to agree. The report talks about the % of enrollment by athletes. At many schools athletes are the most likely group to stay and graduate. Cutting athletics cuts expenses but ends up costing more in lost revenue. Those kids aren't sticking around.

[complaint_hopeful]

I guess I will get around to reading the plan in detail soon and I might even comment if it seems worthy of a comment.

However, I feel what's important here is the big picture. This all has nothing to do with rejuvenating and/or growing the schools. It is, instead, a way to manage the demise of the schools over a yet-to-be-known timespan.

I think the NE plan is sound. It provides a solution for Mansfield. Mansfield can get even smaller and it won't matter that much. I would suspect some faculty and staff can even be farmed out to the other campuses as time goes on.

Lock Haven will survive but get smaller. That isn't terrible. LHU was historically a small college atmosphere. Historically, it was in the 2,000 to 2,500 range. It grew to 5, 300 and now is about 3,300. I think they can absorb the loss and still be "Lock Haven." The key thing is that it will become more specialized. A lot of their healthcare and health-related programs are really good, as are the coaching/education ones. A lot of athletes major in these areas so that bodes well for them.

I think Bloom survives at or near its present levels. I think it bodes well for Bloom that the other two schools will become more specialized. It will enable a Bloom student in a more generic major to pick up some of these specialized courses online from the other schools. That's a positive. It's value-added. I don't think it works in reverse i.e. students at LH and Mansfield in specialized majors pick up generic courses from Bloom. It could be beneficial but I don't think the value-added is as great for them.

As for the West, I don't see any real positives. It's as if they just swept the troubled schools up into a pile and now they are going to call it a school (problem is that it's just a pile and doesn't have any reason to exist.). The online focus will not mean much. You will have the same online benefit in the NE triad. If the online is cheap it might make some money but there is absolutely no school identity attached to that plan.

I think that in time there is an above-average chance that IUP will become part of the consolidation because the state has never done anything for IUP to help it reach the status of a national research university.

So I think I agree with this overall. The West finances are troubling. Even with the optimistic numbers in the Integration, the West doesn't even break even for 5 years. IF they actually lose enrollment, instead of gain...well then they're going to need subsidized from other schools still.

As far as the campus sizes? What you say seems plausible. It's really hard to say how things will shake out. I'd imagine some schools will shrink in person, but the online/hybrid components really will determine that.

[iupgroundhog]

This one says 2 dissenters. Note that one of them cites slowing the process down to receive input from the NCAA. I know everybody is assuming no problems with that but it's not done and it better get done real soon. Greenstein nor the BOG care about that. Pretty sure they don't.

In a general but significant sense, their exuberance and excitement about the process seem entirely misplaced. Look, this is not a good thing. It's a bad thing that has resulted from bad things. Everybody would much rather be independent and not have to deal with this stuff. That these people find it "exciting" really worries me.

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/0...now-opens.html

[complaint_hopeful]

Thanks for sharing. Looks like the tweet I saw that claimed unanimous has since been deleted. I'm glad I was misinformed.

Regardless, public comment is now open for 60 days: www.passhe.edu/publiccomment

Yeah - I watched it live and one person at the end commented that this thing needed slowed down and designed right. So I figured a small amount would vote note.

There was kind of a pitch to approve it during this phase to open it to public comment.

At the start, there were a few call-ins that spoke out against it. One was a Lock Haven student. Then the Union. And the other was I believe a Bloomsburg Trustee.

[Fightingscot82]

I guess I will get around to reading the plan in detail soon and I might even comment if it seems worthy of a comment.

However, I feel what's important here is the big picture. This all has nothing to do with rejuvenating and/or growing the schools. It is, instead, a way to manage the demise of the schools over a yet-to-be-known timespan.

I think the NE plan is sound. It provides a solution for Mansfield. Mansfield can get even smaller and it won't matter that much. I would suspect some faculty and staff can even be farmed out to the other campuses as time goes on.

Lock Haven will survive but get smaller. That isn't terrible. LHU was historically a small college atmosphere. Historically, it was in the 2,000 to 2,500 range. It grew to 5, 300 and now is about 3,300. I think they can absorb the loss and still be "Lock Haven." The key thing is that it will become more specialized. A lot of their healthcare and health-related programs are really good, as are the coaching/education ones. A lot of athletes major in these areas so that bodes well for them.

I think Bloom survives at or near its present levels. I think it bodes well for Bloom that the other two schools will become more specialized. It will enable a Bloom student in a more generic major to pick up some of these specialized courses online from the other schools. That's a positive. It's value-added. I don't think it works in reverse i.e. students at LH and Mansfield in specialized majors pick up generic courses from Bloom. It could be beneficial but I don't think the value-added is as great for them.

As for the West, I don't see any real positives. It's as if they just swept the troubled schools up into a pile and now they are going to call it a school (problem is that it's just a pile and doesn't have any reason to exist.). The online focus will not mean much. You will have the same online benefit in the NE triad. If the online is cheap it might make some money but there is absolutely no school identity attached to that plan.

I think that in time there is an above-average chance that IUP will become part of the consolidation because the state has never done anything for IUP to help it reach the status of a national research university.

Something I learned in the plan is that the system formula for dividing up the lump sum appropriation gives IUP a higher per-student rate as a research university. The new Act 50 rules that allowed consolidation also say that IUP can't be "cross-funded" meaning that IUP's cut won't be supplemented from the other schools like they've been doing for Mansfield and Cheyney.