‘Abandoning Our Soul Should Not Be an Option.’ Closing Campuses Isn’t the Only Answer to Meeting Penn State’s Challenges

By

Jay Paterno, Ted Brown, Alice Pope, Randy Houston and Jeff Ballou

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April 18, 2025 StateCollege.Com

Columns, Latest Penn State News, Opinion

In recent days, the fate of Penn State’s Commonwealth Campus system has come to the fore. There is genuine concern regarding the future of these campuses, and it has sparked a period of uncertainty and trepidation.

It is undeniable that Commonwealth Campus enrollment has declined over the last 10 to 15 years. Some of the declines were quite steep. However, in the last two years after hiring enrollment manager Matt Melvin, the losses have basically flattened and enrollment has steadied in a very short time. It is a remarkable accomplishment.

That is a good thing.

Given that success in a short time, what could be accomplished given another two years?

As you read on, you’ll see that we know the status quo cannot remain.

Closing campuses is one of a range of possible answers to the current challenges. But it is just one possible answer.

Before setting on that stark decision, this question remains: Have all the viable alternative options and innovations been explored? At a recent trustee meeting one trustee asked about things like expanding the reach of Penn College, a part of Penn State that has been thriving.

Other suggestions included regional health hubs or regional continuing education hubs. We could find innovative ways to partner with business and industry like we’ve done at Behrend. All universities need to update and create programs to prepare the next generation’s workforce.

Nursing jobs are in high demand. There are Commonwealth Campuses interested in creating programs to meet that need in areas where there are large numbers of healthcare jobs. Getting the deans of colleges at University Park engaged to expand the reach of their programs across the commonwealth could be another avenue.

There are any number of innovative ideas that may be out there, but we won’t know until we ask. And no reasonable idea should be rejected out of hand without questions, evaluation and study.

The data around the Commonwealth Campuses suggest that we are losing roughly $40-$50 million per year operating them. That seems like a big number but in an operation with a $10 billion budget that amounts to a 0.4% investment in the commonwealth. Not 4% but rather 4 tenths of 1 percent.

At major universities across the country, they subsidize law schools or other units that lose money because they are investments.

That 0.4% is an investment in the soul of Penn State and the heart of our land-grant mission to bring access to the university to people across the commonwealth. That 0.4% seems like a small price to pay for our soul.

There are those who will say “If we were running a business, we would’ve closed these campuses years ago.”

That may be true. But we aren’t running a business. Let’s say that again. We aren’t running a business. We are an educational institution charged with fulfilling a mission and promise made in the mid-19th century.

The very core of our existence is as an institution of higher education. Far too many universities around the country have chosen to run themselves looking at everything as simply line items on a spreadsheet.

Those line items reflect the life destiny of our students, of the faculty who teach them and the staff that facilitate all the logistics it takes to provide life-changing educational experiences.

As such, we are calling for this administration and this board to look a while longer, to look for innovative solutions before making legacy decisions that will have impacts lasting long after we are gone.

The current publicly stated timetable for campus decisions is three months — from the initial announcement in February until a decision in May.

But a 0.4% budget outlay for two years seems a small price to pay to engage legislators, chancellors, students, faculty, staff and community leaders in all these towns and counties where we have our campuses. Give them time to come up with innovative ideas to reinvigorate these campuses. Give our enrollment management team another two years to build on the great job they’ve already started.

Statisticians and data people will say the demographics of certain areas won’t support these campuses. We can choose to throw up our hands and say it is too big a challenge for us.

A decision to close campuses will likely result in reputational harm, at a time when we are pushing to improve sagging academic rankings. Actions that reinforce perceptions of a school treading water in the current environment will hurt those efforts too.

Failing to meet the moment, to meet the mission set forth in 1855, will harm a sacred trust built with the commonwealth and our students and alumni across 170 years.

But those who understand Penn State’s remarkable history believe that nothing is impossible at Penn State. This has been the place where potential’s possibility has repeatedly exploded into tomorrow’s reality.

Given our unique spirit and expertise, we can offer something that overcomes demographics and draws in people from the commonwealth and beyond. Newly conceived, innovative ideas that flow from the ground up can change the enrollment dynamic.

This is a chance to transform people’s lives in accordance with the mission of land grant universities. The federal government gave us land and resources to do just that. Our mission is not to come up with an impressive balance sheet based strictly on dollars and cents.

The true balance sheet is measured in the lives we change, in the people we reach and a legacy of research and service to the commonwealth, the nation and the world. We must balance what we can afford with the mission to do the greatest good for this commonwealth. That path starts not with the assumption that we are going to close campuses automatically.

The path we should seek heads toward a limitless horizon.

We get hundreds of millions of dollars from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We have an obligation to do our very best for the hard-working families in this commonwealth.

Over the decades, Penn Staters have known that there is something that sets us apart: a soul that is based on a connection to every corner of the commonwealth, creating a vibrant mutual partnership and a lasting bond. This legacy deserves and demands that we continue to find the way to live that mission now and in the future. Abandoning our soul should not be an option.

The easy decision is to close campuses because it requires the least thought and inflicts pain elsewhere. We move on and admire our improved finances. It doesn’t really impact University Park and those who will keep their jobs and continue to live and work there.

The hard choice, the more noble decision, is to seek ways to preserve and build upon our land grant mission. Our highest calling is to walk forward in a way that reflects the realities of what it takes to educate the sons and daughters of our commonwealth, the nation and beyond.

Anything less would be a tremendous disappointment to anyone who loves Dear Old State.

Maybe it’s easy to dismiss the call to be aspirational in our vision for the future as some kind of pipe dream. But this place has always been built by dreamers with their feet set firmly in what is possible and their gaze fixed on the next summit of excellence.

Our best days were under the leadership of dreamers, of visionaries who pointed the way forward, people who believed that this place had a soul. Leaders who believed that we were better. That idea that we were unique, that we offered something special, brought people together from every state and every continent, all united in our belief in Penn State.

The call for all of us now comes thundering from generations past, from the ghosts of great men and women watching us still. It is not a question of talent, or intellect, but rather it is a question of will, a question of patient courage.

Can we meet this moment, finding inspiration from the strength of purpose shown by those who have led Penn State brilliantly throughout her history? Or will people of the future look back with sadness at our failure to live up to the hopes and promises that have made us a great and honorable institution of higher learning?

Jay Paterno, Penn State Trustee

Ted Brown, Penn State Trustee

Alice Pope, Penn State Trustee Emeritus

Randy Houston, Former Penn State Trustee and President of the Penn State Alumni Association

Jeff Ballou, Former Penn State Alumni Association Council Member

The views expressed are the individual views of these people and do not reflect the opinions of their employers or any official statement in their present or past roles at Penn State.