PASSHE Institutions Merging

[IUPNation]

IUP is in trouble, and may be holding the State back...a 40 percent decline in student population since 2012 is battering the university’s finances.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...ment-freshmen/

Speaking of a freeloader enjoying his free I-80…,

[Fightingscot82]

I still think the triad creation was the last 'we tried' PR stunt before they ultimately close some doors.

Clarion is a total ghost town these days. It's sad.

The legislature won't close any campuses anytime soon. Too bad of a PR blunder.

[iupgroundhog]

I still think the triad creation was the last 'we tried' PR stunt before they ultimately close some doors.

Clarion is a total ghost town these days. It's sad.

It will wither down to a resource for locals. In the future, people won't actually 'go to' Clarion.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

They're each 3-link chains. You're only as strong as your weakest link. Mansfield is still struggling and hurting the other two. Lock Haven is alright but not nearly at the same level of alarm as Mansfield.

Kutztown is down quite a bit this year, too. Unfortunately the folks who need to be held accountable for recruiting & advising students are unionized so you can't just jettison them for poor performance. They have to violate policy or be convinced to leave.

I still think the triad creation was the last 'we tried' PR stunt before they ultimately close some doors.

Clarion is a total ghost town these days. It's sad.

[Ship69]

IUP is in trouble, and may be holding the State back...a 40 percent decline in student population since 2012 is battering the university’s finances.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...ment-freshmen/

That article is more than a year old now, but some of the problems obviously still apply. What is does nail is Pennsylvania's generally crappy support for public higher education. Something is wrong when a high cost-of-living state such as New Jersey can have lower average tuition than Pa. West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the country, has lower tuitions (as well as a higher minimum wage than Pa.).

[Ship69]

I'm hearing things aren't going well for EITHER triad...

From what I've heard, about $65 million went toward bailing out PennWest this year.

[Fightingscot82]

I'm hearing things aren't going well for EITHER triad...

They're each 3-link chains. You're only as strong as your weakest link. Mansfield is still struggling and hurting the other two. Lock Haven is alright but not nearly at the same level of alarm as Mansfield.

Kutztown is down quite a bit this year, too. Unfortunately the folks who need to be held accountable for recruiting & advising students are unionized so you can't just jettison them for poor performance. They have to violate policy or be convinced to leave.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

IUP's enrollment is up slightly this year. They brought back the cap on per-credit tuition and marketed it as a 20% reduction in tuition. That's all smoke and mirrors but it reads really well to the masses. But they're still down quite a bit from their peak. There's a lot of factors in there that plays into that. They've cut mid and upper level management and recently hired an ass ton of entry level advisors to keep students on the right path academically.

PennWest is the new anchor now that Cheyney has a balanced budget.

The diploma factory era is lost to history. It's never getting back to those numbers.

Ironically the nicest the campus has ever been ...

[WarriorVoice]

IUP's enrollment is up slightly this year. They brought back the cap on per-credit tuition and marketed it as a 20% reduction in tuition. That's all smoke and mirrors but it reads really well to the masses. But they're still down quite a bit from their peak. There's a lot of factors in there that plays into that. They've cut mid and upper level management and recently hired an ass ton of entry level advisors to keep students on the right path academically.

PennWest is the new anchor now that Cheyney has a balanced budget.

I'm hearing things aren't going well for EITHER triad...

[Fightingscot82]

IUP is in trouble, and may be holding the State back...a 40 percent decline in student population since 2012 is battering the university’s finances.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...ment-freshmen/

IUP's enrollment is up slightly this year. They brought back the cap on per-credit tuition and marketed it as a 20% reduction in tuition. That's all smoke and mirrors but it reads really well to the masses. But they're still down quite a bit from their peak. There's a lot of factors in there that plays into that. They've cut mid and upper level management and recently hired an ass ton of entry level advisors to keep students on the right path academically.

PennWest is the new anchor now that Cheyney has a balanced budget.

[WarriorVoice]

IUP is in trouble, and may be holding the State back...a 40 percent decline in student population since 2012 is battering the university’s finances.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...ment-freshmen/

[IUPNation]

Yeah, it hasn't escaped my notice that states or geographic areas within states that paint themselves as havens for rugged individualists have no problem with benefitting from government programs when it suits them. Some representatives who are now trumpeting the money infrastructure projects are bringing to their regions are the same people who voted against those projects in Congress.

It costs the same amount of tolls for me to go from the Downingtown Interchange to Fort Washington as it does to go from Downingtown to Lebanon-Lancaster and it's 20 miles longer. The rate per mile is much higher on the far eastern end of the Pike.

Act 44 needed to be redone. Now the Turnpike is deep in debt paying money to PennDOT that should be coming from tolls from 80.

Cletus and April Mae June said their economy would be destroyed if they had tolls along 80.

But they were okay when rural politicians said they should toll the Surekill Expressway to pay for SEPTA's funding.

Wouldn't that ruin our economy?

I may make people mad in saying this and I don't care but Rural PA holds the state back.

[Ship69]

You mean like how everyone along I-80 got their way but not letting it get tolled and now everyone who lives along the Turnpike is paying outrageous tolls because nobody in Harrisburg has thought to revise Act 44 after the feds struck down tolling 80.

So upstate gets free roads and Southeastern PA gets ****ed over yet again and gets handed the bill.

Yeah, it hasn't escaped my notice that states or geographic areas within states that paint themselves as havens for rugged individualists have no problem with benefitting from government programs when it suits them. Some representatives who are now trumpeting the money infrastructure projects are bringing to their regions are the same people who voted against those projects in Congress.

[IUPNation]

Pennsylvania regulations give boroughs virtually no room to expand and grow. When I lived in Florida, land outside the cities was under control of county commissioners and policed by the county sheriff's department. Cities could annex land by designating an area of expansion and holding vote on the proposed expansion that included city residents and the proposed area to be annexed. It wasn't a perfect system, but probably better than the one that locks boroughs in Pa. into ancient boundaries. What often happens is borough housing grows old, industries leave, people move out, and the tax base deteriorates. A lot of those people move to surrounding townships, which have no interest in helping the boroughs and in fact almost become rivals. My borough operates a community swimming pool that is a not inconsiderable expense for a town our size. We decided to charge non-borough residents of the neighboring township a higher membership fee next year as the township contributes nothing toward the pool. Of course there were complaints over that. Township police actually have to travel through the borough to get from one side of the township to the other, but there is little police cooperation.

As you say, a lot of these small municipalities probably shouldn't even exist, but God help the person who suggests even mild reforms, let alone doing away with any of them. All this made sense in an era of travel when the horse was king, but makes little sense now. Some of the little burgs that don't have their own police even balk at paying $25 a household for PSP protection, as was proposed a couple of years back. They're perfectly content to let others subsidize their police protection. It's a situation that could use the attention of a forward-thinking legislature, which you're certainly not going to find in Pa.

You mean like how everyone along I-80 got their way but not letting it get tolled and now everyone who lives along the Turnpike is paying outrageous tolls because nobody in Harrisburg has thought to revise Act 44 after the feds struck down tolling 80.

So upstate gets free roads and Southeastern PA gets ****ed over yet again and gets handed the bill.

[Fightingscot82]

A good snapshot of why "graduation rate" is a flawed statistic to judge universities. This is from a PASSHE university:

6-year graduation rate of students who received a Pell Grant 57%

6-year graduation rate of students who did not receive a Pell Grant 72%

The Pell grant cutoff is generally at household incomes of $60,000. One third of this school's students receive Pell Grants.

To be included, you must be a full-time traditional-aged domestic freshman enrolled in a bachelors degree program. Adult students, part-timers, transfers, or international students don't count. If a student dies, they are removed from the calculation.

You do not graduate within 6 years if you:
- fail out
- get kicked out for behavior
- drop out for any reason
- transfer to another school
- or obviously, take longer than 6 years to complete your bachelors degree

Most who "don't graduate" transferred to another school for whatever reason. At this school, in the last measured freshman cohort, 65% of lost students transferred.