Pennsylvania’s state-related universities need to address what their response is to their gift from the governor.
The state has four universities that fall into this category of public but not really public, private but not really private.
They also are some of the largest in Pennsylvania. Penn State — the commonwealth’s land grant university — is one of the biggest in the country, with 24 campuses and total enrollment about 100,000. Then there is Temple, with eight campuses and about 40,000 students, and Pitt with five campuses and about 35,000 students. Lincoln University is the smallest, with two campuses and just over 2,000 students.
The state-related designation is a weird limbo that lets the schools exist without state control but still ask for state money. It opens them up to a degree of transparency but not subject to the same scrutiny as the schools of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
The relationship opens them up to being political soccer balls — kicked away when government doesn’t want to deal with them and used to score points when convenient.
This year, they got to do both. The education funding was — as it often is — part of the annual showdown over passing a budget. But after that happened, another revelation was made. Gov. Tom Wolf is giving a $40 million discretionary boost to the schools.
And yet every one of them is raising tuition.
Penn State, Temple and Pitt have some of the highest in-state tuition rates in the country for public schools. In the past 30 years, college tuition has ballooned, rising at about twice the level of inflation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
They know this is a problem. They know students are graduating with crushing debt loads. They have made nods at addressing it, enacting freezes now and then. Penn State’s increase doesn’t impact any students from households making $70,000 or less.
But overall, the tuition increases came, despite requests from legislators to freeze them.
The universities — particularly the big three — need to make real, binding commitments to holding the line on tuition, both as necessary relief to the students and a responsibility to the taxpayers.
