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Corbett’s budget axe hits PaSSHE hard yet again

Disclosure: The author is a graduate of a State System of Higher Education university.

Governor Tom Corbett’s budget proposal takes the axe to higher education in Pennsylvania. While a gallon of ink has been spilled discussing the cuts to the Penn State appropriations, Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities are looking at yet another hit as well. This will almost certainly mean huge tuition hikes and even more program cuts unless the General Assembly restores some of the funding.

Corbett seems willing to compromise on the proposed funding cuts to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PaSSHE) cuts, according to an interview he gave to KDKA radio on Friday. Still, Corbett’s proposal cuts PaSSHE funding from $503 million to $233 million. The basic subsidy would drop from $444 million; $38 million in temporary federal stabilization money disappears; and the budget proposal zeros out funding for recruiting disadvantaged students, Affirmative Action, program initiatives, the McKeever Center and the Pa. Center for Environmental Education both at Slippery Rock. Combined with the cuts to Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln, Corbett’s proposed cuts appear to be the largest higher education cuts in the nation this year.

Ummm… We’re number one, I guess.

According to PaSSHE, the proposed funding level for this year is $2.5 million less than the appropriations in 1983-1984, the first year of the system’s existence. “We want to assure them (students and families) that we will do everything possible to avoid disruptions in their education,” the news release reads.

PaSSHE’s Board of Governors, which authorizes annual tuition rates for the state schools, cannot act until final passage of the budget. PaSSHE students can cling to a bit of hope after House Appropriations Chair William Adolph (R-Delaware) said Tuesday that he can’t support the deep cuts in education. Still, any tuition hikes, coupled with possible cuts to federal Pell grants, would mean fewer low-income students can attend college in Pennsylvania and many who do stay would be looking at larger student loan payments after college.

State Sen. Vincent Hughes, minority chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, predicts a tuition hike in the neighborhood of 20-25 percent if the cuts remain unchanged. Currently, in-state tuition totals $5,804 for the 2010-2011 school year. That is on top of state and university fees and room and board costs. A 25 percent tuition increase would mean students would pay $7,255 just in tuition for the 2011-2011 school year. According to the College Board, the average annual tuition at a public university is around $7,605. It should be noted that “public” university is not the same as a state-owned university.

As a state agency, PaSSHE’s press office cannot do too much Corbett-bashing. On the other hand, the union representing university professors can. “The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) simply cannot withstand this hit without depriving students of essential programs, imposing a massive tuition increase on Pennsylvania’s families, and wiping out essential services,” reads a press release from the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculty (APSCUF).

APSCUF launched two web pages in response to the budget proposals. PA Student Voices is a forum for students to get budget information and contact their legislators. The site also notes the various schools have scheduled “days of action” next week. PA Faculty Voice is a similar site for faculty members.

A history of tuition hikes and funding freezes

APSCUF’s press release hints at a larger trend in state funding of the state-owned universities. It reads, “Pennsylvania’s public universities have already weathered the storm of depleted state funding by becoming more efficient and cutting back on programs; these proposed cuts may just sink the ship. It is unlikely that we will be able to offer students the type of college education that will be required for them to compete in a 21^st century global economy.”

The Pennsylvania Independent parsed out some of the revenue and cost increases in the past decade at the universities. The state appropriation for the 2000-2001 fiscal year totaled, $450.7 million, which is actually a slight decrease from the 2010-2011 appropriation. The story also notes that the state funding increased as much as five percent one year, illustrating the erratic nature of state funding. PaSSHE makes up any revenue gaps with tuition revenue. Between 2001-2002 and 2010-2011, tuition increased 44.5 percent, or about four percent a year on average during a period when the average inflation rate in the region was 2.7 percent. Enrollment still increased during that period from about 90,000 to around 110,000.

On the spending side, faculty salaries increased about 21 percent during that period, though rising health care benefit costs drove personnel spending up during the decade. Utility costs have also driven up budgets at the universities despite conservation measures.

But that does not tell the whole story. PaSSHE spokesperson Kenn Marshall told the Independent that the system has cut $200 million from the school budgets in the past decade in an effort to keep tuition costs down.

It is always the universities and the students who feel the pinch. Here are just a few examples:

• In April, 2010 Lock Haven University’s student newspaper, the Eagle Eye, reported that 13 “small” programs – those that graduate six or fewer students a year – were in danger of being eliminated. Those programs included biology, foreign language, sociology and chemistry.
• In January, 2009 the state system announced that 128 faculty positions would not be filled and non-union administrators would see a pay freeze.
• In 2003, PaSSHE forecasted a $40 shortfall. When that deficit disappeared, the system claimed they had made cuts. The faculty union president claimed that the system overestimated the deficit to give them leverage in contract negotiations.
• At Mansfield University, five faculty members will be “retrenched,” meaning that the positions will be cut, as of the end of this academic year. The cuts threaten the continued survival of the theatre, physics and French majors. Even though the original proposal was to cut as many as 11 faculty members, the faculty passed a no confidence vote against the president and provost in December. Any cuts at Mansfield are on top of the school’s decision in 2006 to cut the Division II football program, a team that often struggled to win a game or two each season. The move saved the school half a million dollars.
• Last week, Kutztown University faculty received a similar notification about possible retrenchment decisions, sparking a wider concern about more faculty cuts at the other 13 schools.
• In July, 2010 IUP announced that it cut 11 full time and 23 part-time faculty positions. While all of those positions were vacant at the time, the vice president of the IUP chapter of APSCUF noted that meant about 100 courses were cut.
• In the wake of Corbett’s announcement, Shippensburg University’s president noted that his institution has made $10 million in cuts in recent years. Last year he noted that numerous positions, including ten percent of the facilities management staff, were unfilled.
• In 2005, Bloomsburg University delayed some capital improvement projects and did not fill nine positions in order to save $1.6 million in the face of minimal revenue increases.
• Slippery Rock University’s board of trustees approved an energy savings plan in 2008. The initiative was an effort to save as much as $200,000 in utility costs per year.
• Edinboro University’s student newspaper reported last year that the school has avoided retrenchment since 1979, though that experience left a lasting impact on the long-time faculty members. Still, Edinboro has largely avoided such drastic measures by hiring more and more temporary faculty and fewer professors in tenure-track positions. The story does raise the question of whether tenure-track professors tend to be more effective than temporary employees.

A move toward privatization?

The decline in state support is not limited to the last decade or so. California University of Pennsylvania President Angelo Armenti Jr. gave a presentation in 2008 asserting that the state system is being privatized without a plan. In his presentation, he shows that state support for the 14 state-owned universities steadily declined from 64 percent in 1984 to 37 percent in 2008. In 1993, state support equaled the local share provided by tuition and fees. Since then, the percent of funding from the state has steadily decreased while tuition and fees covered more of the system and university budgets.

Meanwhile the PaSSHE portion of the state budget has decreased from flirting with three percent in 1987 to around 1.88 percent in 2007. If the trends continue at the rates measured in 2008, Armenti noted that the state appropriation would reach zero by 2041. He also noted similar decreases for Penn State, showing that their appropriation would disappear by 2033 at 2008 rates. Of course, Corbett’s proposed cuts only accelerate that trend.

Capital projects – renovation and new construction – typically require the school to raise half the projected costs in order to leverage the other half of the costs, Armenti added. In the beginning of the state system, the state covered all capital costs. These funds normally come from fund-raising efforts or increased student fees.

Armenti notes that no state official has publically announced that there is a plan to privatize the universities. Indeed, the decrease in percentage of funding has occurred under both Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, the schools operate under restrictions affecting all state agencies. Therefore, he calls the trend “privatization without a plan.”

Corbett’s budget proposal for 2011-2012 makes Armenti’s argument even more relevant and raises some valid questions:

Is Corbett really planning to privatize the state-owned schools?

If he does, how will students from poor and middle class families afford a decent education?

Will the Republican-dominated General Assembly go along with it?

How many students will drop out of school or decide to enroll elsewhere if tuition jumps dramatically? Will such a drop in enrollment force tuition even higher?

Will Democrats frame this as another attack on the middle class in Pennsylvania?

Could this force the smaller universities like Mansfield and Cheney to consider either closing or dramatically cut their program offerings?

Would taxpayers go for higher taxes to support public higher education?

Even if the economy does recover, would a future governor and General Assembly renew the state’s commitment to public higher education and increase the state’s share of PaSSHE funding?

We should know the answers to at least some of these questions as the appropriations committees continue their work.

March 16, 2011 at 2:07 am

--Chris McGann

Tags: Angelo Armenti Jr., APSCUF, Bloomsburg University, California University of Pennsylvania, Cheney University, Corbett, Edinboro University, higher education, Lock Haven University, Mansfield University, Pa Budget 2011, pa2012.com, PaSSHE, Slippery Rock University, Tom Corbett, Vincent Hughes, William Adolph

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