PASSHE Institutions Merging

[Bart]

If approved, the integrations would reduce the system to 10 universities and become the most significant change in its 37-year history.

https://www.inquirer.com/education/p...-20201014.html

[Bart]

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/ed...s/202010140147

[Bart]

https://www.weny.com/story/42767948/...twitter_WENYTV

[Bart]

Looks like these two have the inside track to be the next presidents of the new schools:

"Clarion President Dale-Elizabeth Pehrsson was appointed to lead the effort that will begin the next phase of exploring the combination of the three western universities, while Bloomsburg President Bashar Hanna was named to head up the group looking at integrating the three northcentral schools."

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/1...-campuses.html

[complaint_hopeful]

My prediction on how this plays out is a lot of Faculty and some Staff lose their jobs. The 2 pairs of schools merge into 1 school, but keep campus identities. They start to deduplicate services. This process takes a long time. Maybe a decade. Also, due to negative press from merging/financial issues, etc. the student volume decreases overall. But, then eventually increases.

But, the state seeing that PASSHE trimmed all the fat starts to increase funding to levels needed to sustain Universities and make this succeed.

[ironmaniup]

I think its projections for several years down the road. Which is what the sustainability plans attempt to address and why they were accelerated.

Those numbers though...say Edinboro is $22 million. Say Clarion is $18 million. And say Cal U is $12 million. I made the last 2 up but probably close. How can those 3 combine to save $52 million? Even if its $40 million.

Failure seems inevitable.

I suspect there is a lot more to come. At the end of the 2 year period, it will be close to time to negotiate a new faculty contract which ends in 2023. The big unknown is what students will do given the publicity about financial problems, and the end of the covid crisis. Sometimes a plan is just to create justification for doing what they want to do in the first place. Then they can say, "I gave you a chance, but you blew it."

[complaint_hopeful]

I don't understand the $22 million deficit for Edinboro or the $150 million for the system. Maybe that's the loss after a two virtual semesters?

I think its projections for several years down the road. Which is what the sustainability plans attempt to address and why they were accelerated.

Those numbers though...say Edinboro is $22 million. Say Clarion is $18 million. And say Cal U is $12 million. I made the last 2 up but probably close. How can those 3 combine to save $52 million? Even if its $40 million.

Failure seems inevitable.

[Fightingscot82]

http://www.edinboronow.com/article/c...ation-and-more

I don't understand the $22 million deficit for Edinboro or the $150 million for the system. Maybe that's the loss after a two virtual semesters?

[complaint_hopeful]

http://www.edinboronow.com/article/c...ation-and-more

[Matt Burglund]

How much has tuition at PASSHE schools changed during the last 10 years?

It has increased. How much, I do not know.

[boatcapt]

Adjusted for inflation, $412,751,000 in 2011 would be $483,934,446 in today's dollars.

How much has tuition at PASSHE schools changed during the last 10 years?

[Fightingscot82]

Adjusted for inflation, $412,751,000 in 2011 would be $483,934,446 in today's dollars.

Excellent point. Illustrates why tuition has had to fill the gaps as the cost of doing business increased.

[Matt Burglund]

I've looked at the approved PA State Budget for the last few years and if I'm reading it right, it doesn't look like the PASSHE budget has been cut over the last 10 years. By year, the PASSHE budget has been:

2020 $477.47M (% change from previous year 0%)
2019 $477.47M (+2%)
2018 $468.108M (+3.3%)
2017 $453.108M (+2%)
2016 $444.224M (+2.5%)
2015 $433.389M (+5%)
2014 $412.751M (0%)
2013 $412.751M (0%)
2012 $412.751M (0%)
2011 $412.751M

So if I'm right, PASSHE budget has increased 15.7% over the last 10 years with all of that coming in the last six years. Note that during the same time period the PA State budget as a whole decreased by over 5%.

Adjusted for inflation, $412,751,000 in 2011 would be $483,934,446 in today's dollars.

[Fightingscot82]

WCU asked to do it, and were eventually denied. The conversation at IUP was about the difficulty in transition, certain administrative jobs are easier if you just do it the way PASSHE tells you. The status quo has alot of inertia. Of course, Armenti's removal for malfeasance didn't help much. I still wonder how much his outspoken stance earned him a more forceful takedown. Of course he still says he's innocent, as does Petit.

I don't believe anyone other than West Chester has ever openly talked about leaving the system. From what I've been told, the fight wasn't coming from the administration or a groundswell of alumni and community support. Merely some inspired alumni in the community who were able to push their idea further than many were comfortable taking it at that point.

Armenti's spiel was that the gradual eroding of the state's share of their budgets meant that at some point the schools were going to get nothing but still be under state control. Armenti was let go because he unapologetically mortgaged the future on strategically nebulous projects: a parking garage, a D1-looking basketball arena, and an NFL pipeline championship football program. Its my understanding that he starved all other men's athletic programs to benefit football, pumped millions in unrestricted funds into football, then entered into binding agreements on the convocation center project. All of this happened while enrollment was hitting its peak so he probably also falsely associated the enrollment increase with the athletics spending. Don't get me wrong - he did bring Cal back from the brink of collapse. There was good talk of Cal closing back in the late 80s, early 90s. His ego probably got in the way. Or maybe it was the football track suit.

[ironmaniup]

I think you are conflating 2 different things. As I recall, Armenti's push for breaking from the state system was around 2008-09 and focused on privatization. West Chester's secession idea was about 5 or 6 years later and focused on disassociating itself from PASSHE (and the rest of the schools). The idea surfaced at WCU only when they found themselves gaining enrollment.

Publicly anyway, Armenti was a lone wolf promoting his plan and it mostly just was centered on Cal U since it was his job to save the school and his background was in private universities.

Perhaps, but I always saw the two things as reactions to the same problem. of course, WCUs plan was more practical, and had a number of schools seriously looking at their options.