My comments from the Penn State Board of Trustees Meeting July 19, 2024
Another tuition increase for University Park students
The Penn State Board of Trustees met Thursday and Friday, July 18-19, 2024 at the Harry E Slep Student Center, Penn State Altoona Campus in Altoona, Pennsylvania. According to the Board Secretary, all trustees except Cynthia Dunn, Russell Redding, and Terry Pegula were in attendance.
Prior to Friday’s full Board meeting, there was a public meeting of the Finance, Business, and Capital Planning committee on Thursday. There were two voting items on the Friday public meeting agenda, see below. Read the full published agendas and find links to supporting materials here. When the video of the meeting is available it will be posted here. I urge you to watch it in its entirety.
As a service to alumni and the public who were unable to access the live broadcast of the meeting, the following is an excerpt of the comments I prepared and the vote results for each agenda item.
The first few items at the meeting were housekeeping items; approval of the previous meeting’s minutes, and proposed facilities and academic unit naming recommendations. These items were approved unanimously.
Friday, July 19, 2024 public meeting of the full Board
Action Item 1: Proposed Project Approval, Academic Building, Penn State Abington
This proposal project would be for a new 85,500 square foot three-story academic building at Penn State Abington for the Departments of Art, Psychology, and Social Sciences with 17 classrooms, 4 laboratories, art facilities, faculty offices, and student support spaces. The cost would be $68,000,000.
My comment:
Capital spending proposals like this project bring to light critical governance issues involving balancing the infrastructure needs of our large network of Commonwealth Campuses (all under the same accreditation) versus the challenges we face as a university. This needs to be done holistically, because building something isn’t going to solve those challenges.
I continue to emphasize that our spending decisions need to be disciplined and not rushed. As Pennsylvania Education Secretary Rivera stated in 2015, “Penn State is not a building institution, it’s an educational institution.”
I do feel that Abington may need additional classroom space which will aid academic progress. This is a core mission of the Abington campus, so I support it.
At the same time I am keeping a close eye on the projections and assumptions presented supporting the various capital spending proposals presented to this Board, and am seeing them falling dramatically short of their promised benefits and cost savings. For instance, when $50 million was approved to build a 400 bed dormitory at Abington in 2015, it was presented as vitally important to help them grow their enrollment. In the seven years since then, Abington enrollment has dropped from 4,000 to approximately 3,100 students and the yield of admitted students has dropped from 30% to 17%.
Vote – Yea: 33 Nay: 0
Action Item 2: Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year Beginning July 1, 2025, with Corresponding Tuition, Fees, and Housing and Food Rates
The university is increasing tuition at University Park 2% for In State, 2% for In State/Engineering and Business, 4% for Out of State, and 4% for Out of State/Engineering and Business for the first two years. Commonwealth Campus increases will be 0% for In State and 1% for Out of State.
My comment:
While the deficits have been reduced from where they were two years ago, we have not created a sustainable, efficient operating budget. In addition, our In State tuition remains exorbitantly high and prices out residents. See my tuition tracking spreadsheet here.
Vote:
Yea – 29, including Alumni Trustees Brandon Short, Ali Krieger, Christa Hasenkopf, and Carl Nassib
Nay – 4: Ted Brown, Matt McGloin, Anthony Lubrano, Jay Paterno, and Barry Fenchak
I do not know why they keep sacrificing UP students for commonwealth campus and still refuse to shut down few of them.