PASSHE Institutions Merging

[Fightingscot82]

Pitt announced that it will waive tuition at its branch campuses for students from households making less than $75,000. The fine print is that this is final dollar relief, meaning they waive the tuition balance (not fees, housing, meal plan) after the student's federal (Pell) grants and state (PHEAA) grants. So the actual amount they waive is much less. But they'll make out on extra students living on campus and possibly sticking around because at schools like those (and ours) running out of money is the #1 reason students don't finish. Nothing against the campuses themselves (they're all fine), their locations are tough. Johnstown's location is best of the three because its in the newer more suburban area of Johnstown while Greensburg is somewhat isolated on the edge of the town and Bradford is outside of town in a relatively rural area. Pitt also runs these as four-year outposts to increase the Pitt brand, rather than the 2-year transfer factories that Penn State's branches were built to be.

This is worth mentioning because this is a common recruiting strategy for our coaches. The ideal recruit is a good student from a poor family so the athletic aid fills the gaps after government grants and any academic scholarships. Since its available to all Pitt Johnstown students, it won't count as athletic aid and allows their coaches to stretch their scholarship dollars further.

[IUPNation]

There is a false assumption inside and outside of PASSHE that WCU's size is largely because WCU "must be doing something right." Yes and kind of. Their location is a huge factor. WCU wouldn't have the same size if they were in suburban Erie or even suburban Pittsburgh. WCU was able to maintain its size after everyone's 2010 peak, which allowed them to keep programs.

It helps too that Chester County has a lot of students who went out of state for college and
partied too much and needed a local landing spot when Mommy and Daddy forced them home.

[Fightingscot82]

Seems like you're also assuming that those people were selected solely because of WCU's size.

There is a false assumption inside and outside of PASSHE that WCU's size is largely because WCU "must be doing something right." Yes and kind of. Their location is a huge factor. WCU wouldn't have the same size if they were in suburban Erie or even suburban Pittsburgh. WCU was able to maintain its size after everyone's 2010 peak, which allowed them to keep programs.

[IUPNation]

Exactly. I'm not saying that's the only reason West Chester is the largest PASSHE school, but it’s a big factor. Not just region, but also exact location. West Chester is a nice suburb with great access to public transportation (can you imagine how much they would have grown if the SEPTA train still went to West Chester?). It’s a good school that serves the middle and working class folks of the west suburbs but is reputable enough to pull in kids who get wait listed or can't afford Villanova, Drexel, and Temple.

I think WCU has poached kids from this area who may have gone to other state system schools in the past to have that college experience but stayed home to save money on room and board. Indiana feels more of a college town than West Chester does…

[Horror Child]

Right. And the chancellor was at WCU for 41 years. I have no problems with West Chester, but I'm worried that the system is just assuming WCU's size is solely because they do everything right and therefore they become a pipeline for the rest of the system.

Seems like you're also assuming that those people were selected solely because of WCU's size.

[Ship69]

Exactly. I'm not saying that's the only reason West Chester is the largest PASSHE school, but its a big factor. Not just region, but also exact location. West Chester is a nice suburb with great access to public transportation (can you imagine how much they would have grown if the SEPTA train still went to West Chester?). Its a good school that serves the middle and working class folks of the west suburbs but is reputable enough to pull in kids who get wait listed or can't afford Villanova, Drexel, and Temple.

It's not the only reason, but I'd sure say it's the biggest as they're located in an urban area that is by far the largest in Pa. And as you say the easy access is a factor. In central Pa., Ship, Millersville, and Bloomsburg kind of divide up the market. In the West, there are multiple schools and the demographics are clearly working against them Areas near Ship are growing, but I've noticed in recent years that we're getting recruiting visits from some of the other state schools that wouldn't have come here in the past, as they're trying to go where the dwindling pool of students is to be found. I'm afraid something's got to give everntually.

[Fightingscot82]

They are the beneficiaries of location with good demographics.

Exactly. I'm not saying that's the only reason West Chester is the largest PASSHE school, but its a big factor. Not just region, but also exact location. West Chester is a nice suburb with great access to public transportation (can you imagine how much they would have grown if the SEPTA train still went to West Chester?). Its a good school that serves the middle and working class folks of the west suburbs but is reputable enough to pull in kids who get wait listed or can't afford Villanova, Drexel, and Temple.

[IUPNation]

Right. And the chancellor was at WCU for 41 years. I have no problems with West Chester, but I'm worried that the system is just assuming WCU's size is solely because they do everything right and therefore they become a pipeline for the rest of the system.

They are the beneficiaries of location with good demographics.

[Fightingscot82]

She was at WCU for 25 years so she had rather strong ties to West Chester before being sent west for a couple of years.

Right. And the chancellor was at WCU for 41 years. I have no problems with West Chester, but I'm worried that the system is just assuming WCU's size is solely because they do everything right and therefore they become a pipeline for the rest of the system.

[Horror Child]

The Penn West interim president is now the permanent president at West Chester. Its a well circulated rumor that was a negotiated part of her taking the PW job.

She was at WCU for 25 years so she had rather strong ties to West Chester before being sent west for a couple of years.

[Ship69]

Looks like the Ship is without power…

The university, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, has secured generators that should arrive and be installed in the coming hours. The plan, at this moment, is to deploy the first set of generators to Harley and Lackhove Halls and open the MPR spaces in Harley Hall for students to charge devices, access Wi-Fi, etc. It is our hope to have all residence halls on generator power and fully operational by later this evening.

The CUB, Library, and Ship Rec will remain closed for today. The CUB will open tomorrow as scheduled. Reisner continues to maintain normal operating hours.

Please be mindful that plans may change, based on circumstances out of the university's control, but we will continue to communicate those changes as they occur. We thank you for your patience throughout this incident, and we will continue to work diligently to restore power to campus as soon as possible.

No decision has been made regarding Monday classes.

Apparently there was a fire at a nearby electrical relay station. My borough just had a water main break about a half-block from my house. Our infrastructure is not in A-1 shape. And now they talk about throwing up these data centers everywhere. Data centers use anywhere from 300,000 to more than a million gallons of water a day, depending on size. The total water flow in our borough system, which services roughly 15,000 people, is 1.5 million gallons daily.

[IUPNation]

Looks like the Ship is without power…

The university, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, has secured generators that should arrive and be installed in the coming hours. The plan, at this moment, is to deploy the first set of generators to Harley and Lackhove Halls and open the MPR spaces in Harley Hall for students to charge devices, access Wi-Fi, etc. It is our hope to have all residence halls on generator power and fully operational by later this evening.

The CUB, Library, and Ship Rec will remain closed for today. The CUB will open tomorrow as scheduled. Reisner continues to maintain normal operating hours.

Please be mindful that plans may change, based on circumstances out of the university's control, but we will continue to communicate those changes as they occur. We thank you for your patience throughout this incident, and we will continue to work diligently to restore power to campus as soon as possible.

No decision has been made regarding Monday classes.

[iupgroundhog]

The future of in-person college for 18-22 year olds is greatly in flux.

The topic of non-traditional education aside, i don't think the schools or the system can punt on in-person college for 18-22 year olds because that is exactly what they are.

[Fightingscot82]

I think it depends on what they want their strategy to be. The future of in-person college for 18-22 year olds is greatly in flux. Just when we seem to figure out the last harbinger there is a new one.

Western PA population is hard to determine. Its condensing around Pittsburgh. Everywhere else west of State College is dying at varying degrees. Unfortunately that also means that repurposing campuses is more difficult. The futures market is going to be retooling and upgrading the work force: working adults who need a degree or need to finish the degree they abandoned - and existing workers who need to pick up very defined knowledge & skills that would come from certificates, boot camps, and applied to allow them to change jobs mid-career or adjust to an evolving profession. This means online education, things that aren't degrees in the existing sense, and when in person, probably intensive boot camp and institute style learning. PhD's will hate it, but its the only path forward to maintain 10 schools and 14 residential campuses.

Clarion will probably get some sympathy because its the county seat and would leave a small, rural hospital, county government, and Walmart as the largest employers in the county. Edinboro as a community is doing just fine because they're a rural exurb of Erie and has a strong summer home community on the lake the town sits on.

The way the birth rate is going, there's going to be an incredible hollowing of the services side of the state government as there is less and less tax revenue flowing into Harrisburg. State parks will become unstaffed or closed altogether, state police will likely pull back from providing free policing to rural communities, and infrastructure investment will suffer. I'm all for people choosing to not have kids, but there aren't enough people having kids. Some people will retch at the thought, but if you can't birth your way out of population decline, you have to import population (immigration).

All said, this Penn West plan (and to a lesser extent, the Commonwealth plan) is a crock of crap. It was nothing more than a plan and a consolidation of clearly duplicated positions. No strategic change of how they operate other than having staff report to staff working at other campuses. Ironically, the student experience is largely defined by online classes - but the universities have ended even one day a week remote work for staff.

[iupgroundhog]

https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvan...4800-students/

They overestimated enrollment and revenue, huh? Come on now. The problem with reducing costs for the triad is that there are many forces that have worked against that, mainly due to a lot of people's livelihoods being at stake.

This is the first time I've seen the idea of closing campuses given such legitimacy. Is that inevitable?

I'm somewhat biased but if I ran the western half of PASSHE I would reduce the 5 campuses down to 3. First, Edinboro and Clarion need to be merged. I think Clarion, due to the infrastructure of things, should be the surviving campus in NWPA. Cal should go in the direction of a 2-year school and be a feeder for IUP and SRU. That would bolster IUP and SRU for the future. Students from NWPA should be pushed toward IUP and SRU, also. There are losses to be minimized. Aside from focusing on what can we do for the triad schools, they need to think about what we can do for the larger Western PA schools, IUP and SRU. We are familiar with IUP's woes and I think SRU's gains are going to start to dissipate pretty soon. They need to cut their losses in Western PA. That's a strategy.