PASSHE Institutions Merging

[Fightingscot82]

I assume the NCAA will approve. As we've shared this is hardly the first case of one school operating multiple athletic departments. Something briefly mentioned in the Western Triad report that's worth mentioning - how will this be reflected in PSAC governance? Will Western Triad University get one vote or does each athletic department get a vote? If the latter, would Clarion be allowed to cast a vote different from the others?

[complaint_hopeful]

Here is the BOG Agenda for the meeting tomorrow...along with the implementation plans:

04-28-2021 Agenda.pdf (passhe.edu)

[complaint_hopeful]

re: Closing schools in the West - Requires legislative action and between $100 million to $287 million per university, for a total of $660 million to offset closing costs.

THAT'S why no schools would close.

[IUPNation]

I don't know if that's necessarily true. The case for support of public education has never been less welcomed. A lot of PA folks don't understand the basic math of why subsidized education is a common economic benefit. Its especially true for the future as our population dwindles and rural jobs continue to evaporate. But they'll continue to blame woes on brown-skinned immigrants and the myth of the black welfare state.

[IUPNation]

re: Closing schools in the West - Requires legislative action and between $100 million to $287 million per university, for a total of $660 million to offset closing costs.

THAT'S why no schools would close.

[Fightingscot82]

re: Closing schools in the West - Requires legislative action and between $100 million to $287 million per university, for a total of $660 million to offset closing costs.

THAT'S why no schools would close.

I'm interested in learning more about what the system constitutes costs to close down a campus. I'm going to assume that this made up of liquidating equipment, removing signage, mothballing facilities, and layoff costs for employees. There's got to be some sort of annual cost as well to maintain the property at the bare minimum. Can't just let everything get overgrown.

[Fightingscot82]

Because a large swath get their information from national punditry. There's a rural Crawford County state legislator who made his mark by posting rhetorical questions on his Facebook pages. Lately most of his posts are about national issues like immigration or second amendment rights. Naturally people living in places like Conneaut Lake, Guys Mills, and Titusville get up in arms over these topics. Yet the guy works in Harrisburg. For Pennsylvania. Oh, he sits on the PASSHE board too. He's a buffoon who will likely remain in office until he quits or another Republican somehow unseats him.

There's actually a group of academics who study how states support colleges and universities - and they specialize in how state-funded higher ed benefits rural America. One of them actually grew up in Edinboro, PA. He recently published something worth reading.

https://medium.com/@koricichma/propo...s-5a3500fc65c6

[complaint_hopeful]

I'm interested in learning more about what the system constitutes costs to close down a campus. I'm going to assume that this made up of liquidating equipment, removing signage, mothballing facilities, and layoff costs for employees. There's got to be some sort of annual cost as well to maintain the property at the bare minimum. Can't just let everything get overgrown.

In the West, I saw that the 3 schools each had nearly over $100 million in bond obligations. I think that would be a big part of it. I think the lowest was like $90 or so million.

[Fightingscot82]

In the West, I saw that the 3 schools each had nearly over $100 million in bong obligations. I think that would be a big part of it. I think the lowest was like $90 or so million.

LOL ironically one of the suggestions for academic growth is the creation of a cannabis science certificate.

But yes, the 6 schools in question have nearly $470 million in construction debt. Mansfield owes the system $7 million in operational debt.

[complaint_hopeful]

Interestingly, I see they forecast 1% growth a year for students. So schools losing enrollment independently each year will combine and start growing immediately? That seems a bit overly optimistic.

I would anticipate they'll lose enrollment initially. Then, maybe they do gain.

[complaint_hopeful]

LOL ironically one of the suggestions for academic growth is the creation of a cannabis science certificate.

But yes, the 6 schools in question have nearly $470 million in construction debt. Mansfield owes the system $7 million in operational debt.

Their subliminal advertising campaign has been VERY effective. I didn't even realized it worked on me until I typed that.

I'd be interested in knowing what it would cost to close these schools IF they didn't have all that bond debt? Would seem the cost would be fairly low. Like $10-20 million? At that point, it might be less than the cross subsidy burden.

[Fightingscot82]

Interestingly, I see they forecast 1% growth a year for students. So schools losing enrollment independently each year will combine and start growing immediately? That seems a bit overly optimistic.

I would anticipate they'll lose enrollment initially. Then, maybe they do gain.

I agree and I said this during my time on the little charade of a focus group with the marketing agency. The *only* thing that give these schools market competiveness is geography and cost. Geography isn't changing so the only way to improve is to make them cheaper to attend. Problem is that its like running a hospital: if you cut doctors, you also decrease billable procedures. You can't reduce costs without it affecting revenue. The easiest (and certainly not easy) way to do this is with an infusion of state funding. Restore the funding levels to pre-Great Recession levels since enrollment is now there in exchange for holding the line on tuition.

[complaint_hopeful]

I agree and I said this during my time on the little charade of a focus group with the marketing agency. The *only* thing that give these schools market competiveness is geography and cost. Geography isn't changing so the only way to improve is to make them cheaper to attend. Problem is that its like running a hospital: if you cut doctors, you also decrease billable procedures. You can't reduce costs without it affecting revenue. The easiest (and certainly not easy) way to do this is with an infusion of state funding. Restore the funding levels to pre-Great Recession levels since enrollment is now there in exchange for holding the line on tuition.

Yep. As far as cost...so there is a goal to reduce cost to educate or some similar wording by 25%. So people initially saw that and was like - It's going to cost 25% less for students! Well I think I saw in the plan that they're forecasting 1% cost increases too.

So they want to lower costs by 25% and charge 1% more. That's going to be hard to do. Really hard to do.

There was something interesting in the West report about like 73% of students taking classes in one of 6 programs. I thought that was interesting. (Going off the top of my head here so numbers might be slightly off.)

So to recap, they want to :
1 ) Create a new entitiy with no branding history. Yet, also preserve the old identity. (Seemingly conflicting goals.) Like will email address domains stay the same? 1 website or 3? You have to pick a lane on this stuff.
2 ) Reduce costs by 25%
3 ) Increase tuition by 1%
4 ) Take 3 schools that have traditionally lost enrollment for nearly a decade - semester over semester...and immediately make it grow by 1%.
5 ) They claim employee losses will mainly be attrition from retirements, so presumably the people in positions that aren't needed will retire so they don't have to rehire it. (I joke...because what happens is people leave, some in positions that are needed...and they don't rehire them.)

[Fightingscot82]

Exactly.

The math doesn't line up. But Chancellor Wonk is significantly increasing his appearance on podcasts and media interviews.

[complaint_hopeful]

Yep. They've spent a lot of time with PR and superficial things...ie Talking about how amazing this plan is for months and months.

But, when you start to dig through the numbers...there are lots of questions. Also, when you start to dig into the implementation and timeframe, there are some major gaps.

Now IF they pushed the timeframe back another year for when this thing went live, I'd feel much better about it all. There seems to be no appreciation for the amount of work that needs done. They just arbitrarily set a date.

For a real project, you'd work it in reverse. You'd calculate the work timeframe and set a date that is realistic.

What I don't know is what is reported to the Chancellor. I've witnessed group meetings and focus groups with him over the years and the people in those meetings are wildly optimistic about things. Like however they select these people, they don't select the campus complainers. So if morale is low on campus, he doesn't see it. He gets the optimistic view and people are hesitant to be negative and complain. So for all we know, the people he talks to might be feeding him lines that this is amazing, then go back to their campuses and complain. <-- A lot of that goes on. People tailor what they say to the audience and tell them what they want to hear. That can happen in this as people think they're fighting for jobs.