HARRISBURG — Leaders of Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities stressed their shared needs for more state funding during a budget hearing Thursday in the state House.
The combined requests by Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln universities total $861 million, according to Rep. James Struzzi, R-Indiana.
Gov. Josh Shapiro seeks far less in his own budget proposal — $634 million.
Under the governor’s plan, Penn State would receive $272 million, Pitt would receive nearly $155 million, another $158 million would go to Temple and Lincoln, a far smaller operation than the other three, would get more than $18 million.
Another $30 million is described as a grant initiative for the four schools concerning student access and achievement.
Shapiro is proposing a shift to performance-based budgeting, a concept also proposed for the state-owned Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, with established metrics for the schools to achieve for maximizing a funding request.
Terms for the new metric-based model are pending. Leaders of the four universities expressed an openness or outright support for such a shift.
The funds would be distributed as grants through the Department of Education, and a simple majority vote by the Legislature rather than a two-thirds vote would be needed to approve the appropriations. Shapiro previously said this would “break the cycle of political gamesmanship” surrounding funding for the state-related institutions.
“If we received a 5 percent increase (as proposed by Shapiro) we would adjust the rest of our budget as necessary,” President Richard Englert of Temple University told Struzzi, adding that its own request was based on whether it might be mandated for a tuition freeze.
Tuition represents 71% of Temple’s revenue compared to 13% from the state appropriation, Englert said. Should the appropriation grow by 5% as proposed by Shapiro, Englert said it would impact student tuition rates.
“Other states are investing way more in higher education and it will impact the economy and our future,” said Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi, who supports performance-based budgeting.
Asked about the financial footing of its satellite campuses — Penn State has 20 undergraduate locations spread across Pennsylvania — Bendapudi said enrollment challenges are a direct correlation to its budget challenge. She said it was “too premature” to make decisions about the viability of the satellite campuses and that university leaders are looking ahead to trim costs and be more responsive to workforce needs in each campus’s particular area.
“We’re still very much looking at how we can change the model in order to reverse the trend,” Chancellor Joan Gabel said of University of Pittsburgh’s four satellite campuses which she described as also facing financial and enrollment struggles.
Englert spoke of the appropriations received by state-related universities, which are meant to offset student tuition.
“That discount is almost twice as much, about $270 million, just to our students,” he said of the proposed allocation in Shapiro’s budget.
“I would remind you that we’re educating about 92,000 students this year,” Bendapudi said. “We’re actually discounting $15,000 per student.”
