You don’t need a Ph.D. to understand the
math that spells trouble for public higher education in many states.
Typically, the number of high-school graduates is projected to decline
by X percent in the coming decade, and state support has dropped by Y
million dollars since the recession with little sign of ever rising
again. Meanwhile, the number of four-year regional comprehensive
universities remains constant, an inflexible
denominator.
The
numbers are plain, but solutions remain elusive. Comprehensives are the
workhorses of a public higher-education system, awarding the bulk of
bachelor’s degrees and providing educational opportunities in all
corners of a state. But certain corners of many states are home to
institutions that have been hemorrhaging students and struggling to
balance their budgets.
Pennsylvania is one of those states. Nine
of the 14 institutions in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher
Education, known as Passhe, have suffered double-digit percentage drops
in fall enrollment since 2009. (Only one, West Chester University, in a
Philadelphia suburb, has seen steady annual increases during that
period.)
Enrollment at Clarion U. of Pennsylvania has dropped nearly 29 percent since 2009.
In January, the system announced the first ever full-scale review
of its universities and the system over all, which Frank T. Brogan, the
chancellor, says is unsustainable in its current form. "The Board of
Governors pretty quickly made the case that everything should be on the
table. What got most of the attention was the word ‘closure,’" he says.
But neither he nor the board want to take that route: "Sustainability is
a more complicated approach, and I think a more powerful approach." A
State Senate committee will also conduct its own independent review of
the system later this year. Passhe’s is slated to be completed this
summer.
What can be done, in Pennsylvania and in the growing
number of states that are being forced to reckon with their
comprehensive-university systems? Universities, even wobbly ones, are
complex and substantial organizations sunk into the bedrock of their
communities, their regions, their states. It may be nearly impossible to
close one. And so some leaders are looking for ways to keep colleges
alive, by carving out niches for them in the marketplace or by merging
and consolidating, as has happened in Maine and Georgia.
But are
such efforts transformational enough, or are they just a way of
rearranging the deck chairs? And what will public comprehensive
universities look like on the other side?
Whatever happens, it’s
probably high time, says Karen M. Whitney, president of Clarion
University, a Passhe institution. "We are," she says, "in a moment of
reformation."
Some Passhe
institutions are not waiting for the results of the two reviews to try
to improve their fortunes, and they’re using a strategy being employed
by colleges everywhere: finding a distinctive competitive niche. It’s a
remarkable shift for institutions designed to be "comprehensive."
But
significant transformation is not unknown at an institution like
Clarion, according to Ms. Whitney. Since its founding in 1867 in the
small Western Pennsylvania hilltop town from which it takes its name,
Clarion has been a private Methodist seminary, a commonwealth normal
school, an independent public university, and, since 1983, a Passhe
institution. "Each of those reformations came with a shift of
development in our mission and why we exist," she says.
The latest shift has been sparked by a serious enrollment decline.
Clarion’s fall enrollment dropped from 7,346 students in 2009 to about
5,224 students last year, a decrease of nearly 29 percent.
For
Clarion to rebound, it must focus on what its students want, Ms.
Whitney says. And those preferences are clear: About 80 percent of
Clarion’s students enroll in its business, health-care, or education
programs. "I am not going to ignore 80 percent of our students," she
says. "We’re moving from a broad-based approach to being all things to
all people to what I’m going to call a distinctive mission."
The
university recently expanded its health-care offerings with a nursing
B.S.N. program, and she says she’s encouraged by the trends in
applications and admissions for next fall. Ms. Whitney adds that in five
years, if all goes well, she expects the share of its students enrolled
in professional degree programs will have topped 90 percent.
Meanwhile,
fall enrollment at Mansfield University, in rural north-central
Pennsylvania, dropped from 3,569 to 2,198 since 2009, a decrease of 38
percent. It is planning to increase its appeal to students by shifting
its role away from a straightforward comprehensive university toward a
liberal-arts institution at a public-education price point, including
ambitions to suffuse its existing professional and pre-professional
programs with "liberal-arts-type tenets," says Brig. Gen. Francis L.
Hendricks, the president. Mansfield isn’t making a left turn from its
mission, he says, "it’s just a matter of playing to our strengths."
Edinboro
University, in the commonwealth’s northwest corner, is responding to
losing about 28 percent of its fall enrollment between 2010 and 2016 by
identifying four academic program areas on which to refocus its
resources, including its arts and digital entertainment program, among
other pre-professional tracks.
Emphasizing certain things leads
to de-emphasizing others. As Clarion’s nursing offerings have grown,
disciplines such as philosophy and history have dwindled to a handful of
faculty of each. At Edinboro, programs that are less in demand by
students may have to be cut, says H. Fred Walker, the president. "What
we’re being asked to do right now is become responsive to the changing
economy," he says. "That’s a healthy thing."
While leaders at some Passhe institutions may be setting a new course
for their universities, those courses may be reversed by the
recommendations of the looming system reviews. Five years from now,
Clarion might have staked out its niche funneling students into careers
in hospitals, small businesses, and schools. Or the system might have
steered it in an entirely new direction. Or it might be shuttered.
But
Ms. Whitney and other Passhe presidents agree that something must be
done. Whatever happens, she says, "the worst thing that can happen is
that nothing happens."
In the abstract, closing faltering institutions makes some sense. In reality, it’s all but impossible.
"Devastating"
is a common response to questions about the possible effects of a
closure. Clarion University, for example, is the largest employer in
Clarion County. It is an economic and cultural driver in a poor region
where the population and the manufacturing base that once employed it
have both trailed off in recent decades. If Clarion closes, "you just
basically say, ‘We’re shutting down Clarion County,’" says Jamie L.
Phillips, a professor of philosophy and chair of the Faculty Senate at
Clarion.
If the region is to rebound, it needs Clarion more than
ever, says Mr. Phillips, who has worked there for 18 years. About 86
percent of the university’s students come from within 200 miles of the
campus, and Clarion represents one of the few options for higher
education in the immediate region. "Take that away from them, and what’s
left?" Mr. Phillips says. "There’s nothing."
But the truth is
that public colleges almost never die. The only commonly cited example
of a stand-alone quasi-four-year public college that has been shut down
is the University of South Dakota at Springfield, a small technical
college that mostly offered two-year programs until it closed in 1984.
(It was soon converted into a state prison.)
Even killing off a
failing branch campus can be an agonizing process. Partly because of a
$30-million cut to state support, the University of Connecticut system
last year closed its campus in Torrington, where enrollment had dwindled
to about 150 students even as it climbed at all five other UConn
campuses. System officials spent a year in discussions about the
necessity of the move with the Board of Trustees, state and local
elected officials, and students and community members, says Sally M.
Reis, the system’s vice provost for academic affairs.
But still there were objections, which were both practical and quirky.
Torrington residents insisted to the board that it stay open, even
though many of their own children had enrolled at UConn campuses
elsewhere, Ms. Reis says. Community members suggested revitalizing the
campus with a new manufacturing emphasis, even though nearby community
colleges provided such training at a lower price. Some fretted publicly
about the fate of the library’s in-house cat. (It found a new home
before the campus closed last May.)
Suggested closures not
only alarm local communities, they’re political poison. Each endangered
university sits in some representative’s or senator’s district, and
there’s "lots of downside for the people who represent those areas and
not a lot of upside," says Iris Palmer, a senior policy analyst for
education policy at New America, a former Department of Education
official, and an expert on public higher-education policy.
If
states actually wanted to close institutions, Ms. Palmer says, it would
help to have something like the United States military’s Base
Realignment and Closure process, which is designed to make holistic,
impartial decisions about closing defense installations, "to right-size
these systems and do it well."
Since
closing universities often isn’t a realistic option, several systems
have considered campus mergers and other kinds of consolidation. That
can take the form of sharing or pooling some business functions with other institutions, or merging two separate campuses under the same management and leadership.
Some
struggling Passhe institutions are already sharing services with their
peers in order to increase efficiency and reduce their costs. Cheyney
University, a historically black institution outside Philadelphia that
has seen enrollment drop by more than half since 2010, now outsources
most of its business functions to nearby West Chester University.
Mansfield University, which is handing over many of its business
functions to the larger Bloomsburg University, about 90 miles away, will
save the former money "so that we can protect the primary mission,"
says General Hendricks, the president.
Mr. Brogan, the system
chancellor, says he suspects that consolidations could be a part of how
the system moves forward after the reviews "Our system has up until
quite recently been very much an every-man-for-himself operation," he
says, with many of the same basic functions reproduced 14 times over.
"They just don’t have the money to do that. More importantly there is no
longer the necessity to do that."
Other states have taken similar tacks. The University System of
Georgia, for example, has merged 14 institutions over the past six years
in an effort to improve academic opportunities and cut costs.
Maine has also looked to mergers to help adjust the scope of its system
of seven public four-year institutions to serve a shrinking population
of 1.3 million.
The University of Maine system announced in
March that it would merge its coastal Machias campus, which enrolls
fewer than 800 students, with its flagship campus in Orono, about 90
miles away. The Machias campus had been struggling to maintain its
enrollment — fall headcount shrank from 863 in 2011 to 786 in 2015 — and
years of budget shortfalls had led to numerous staff cuts. "It had
really become hollowed out," says James H. Page, chancellor of the
University of Maine system. "That’s a strong term, but it really had."
The
system’s Board of Trustees considered closing the campus, but ruled it
out. "Would you take one of the last anchor institutions out of a region
to save five, six, or seven million dollars, which would probably be a
quick back-of-the-envelope net savings from something like that?" Mr.
Page says. "And the answer is, you would not."
Because of Orono’s
size and relatively good financial health, it can perform back-office
functions far more cheaply than Machias can. The flagship can also offer
the smaller campus services that it hasn’t had money for in several
years, according to Mr. Page, including marketing and enrollment
assistance. There are also academic synergies woven into the merger.
Orono students and faculty will gain better access to Machias’ marine
research facilities and teaching opportunities, while Machias could gain
more students and access to more research funding. If Machias gets back
to more solid footing as part of Orono, Mr. Page says, it might be able
to strengthen itself, and its region, again.
Still, the old
model of individualized universities has presented barriers to
efficiency, and difficult questions. The system has a cybersecurity
program taught on three different campuses. Do students have to enroll
in three different universities? What about the differences in fees from
campus to campus? And then there’s accreditation. The New England
Association of Schools and Colleges accredits individual institutions,
not systems, Mr. Page says.
Consolidations also may not be the
silver bullet, financially, that many hope they are. While merging
campuses can save money for a system, the savings typically come from
layoffs of employees made redundant. "Saving that money will result in
people losing their jobs, and some legislators are going to fight very
hard to preserve jobs in their district," says Thomas L. Harnisch,
director of state relations and policy analysis at the American
Association of State Colleges and Universities. While closing or
consolidating some offices can result in savings, many merged
institutions still maintain two physical plants, two sets of faculty,
and many administrators. Mergers are increasingly popular options, but
"it’s an open question to how much money will ultimately be saved at the
end of the day through these campus consolidations," Mr. Harnisch says.
(It’s difficult to gauge the extent of savings in Georgia; the
University System of Georgia did not respond to interview requests
before press time.)
Yet, despite the uncertainties, Passhe, the
University of Maine, and other systems may be peering over the lip of a
new era of public higher education, where the autonomy and distinct
identity of individual universities is redirected to a focus on
delivering education to students as efficiently as possible. "The real
question in all of this is, How do you use the collective assets of the
institutions to serve students wherever they are?" says Dennis Jones,
president emeritus of the National Center for Higher Education
Management Systems, or Nchems, a nonprofit organization that advises
colleges and systems on higher-education policy, and which is conducting the review
commissioned by Passhe. Looking at the situation with a student-centric
focus, rather than an institution-centric one, moves the conversation
away from which individual universities might be closed or merged and
toward how those universities operate and collaborate to provide
education to students — which may have to be reconceived, he says.
It’s
possible to imagine a future iteration of Passhe that looks and
operates less like a collection of independent public universities and
more like a system of branch campuses.
Each
state’s political realities shape what’s possible in rethinking, and
possibly reconfiguring, a large public university system. They are
especially daunting in Pennsylvania.
No overarching office or
organization coordinates its higher-education policy. Reforming that
policy is the sort of complex and potentially contentious political task
that’s going to take an official who "wakes up every morning and thinks
that solving Passhe and its issues is my everyday job," says Mr. Jones.
"The problem in Pennsylvania is that nobody does that, because there’s
nobody that’s charged with that."
There are many issues to solve,
some of the stickiest falling well outside the control of Passhe’s
Board of Governors. Penn State University, the flagship research
university, now has 24 campuses located throughout the commonwealth, all
of them vying for many of the same students who might attend Passhe
universities. Thanks to its laissez-faire approach to higher-education
strategy, "this state has created an inherent competition even within
the competition," says Mr. Brogan.
Passhe leaders also say that the system’s union contracts have made it
tough to maintain their institutions’ sometimes shaky bottom lines.
Mansfield University cut its labor force by almost 7 percent last year
to help close a projected $8-million budget gap, says General Hendricks,
the president, only to be hit with increased labor costs from a new
faculty contract: "We watched all that water that we bailed out of the
boat come right back in."
The system’s labor agreement with
faculty also contains limitations on dismissing or reassigning
professors that may make it difficult to substantially shift how its
universities deliver instruction in a revamped Passhe.
But
Passhe’s problems have nothing to do with its unions, according to
Kenneth M. Mash, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State
College and University Faculties, known as Apscuf, which represents the
system’s faculty. The financial straits affecting many of the system’s
institutions stem from crumbling state support (only about 24 percent of
Clarion University’s annual operating budget now comes from the
commonwealth, for example), and from bad choices made by the leaders of
individual institutions, he says. "It’s easy to say that this university
or that university is failing, but is it really failing, or are the
conditions such that it just can’t succeed?" he says. He adds that
union-contract strictures provide an important check on "business
mentality" decisions about the course of Passhe’s universities. System
leaders "should be required to justify why what they’re doing is
necessary," he says.
In the end, resolving these complications —
or even electing to face them — comes down to political will. "You can
do a great review, you can do a great study," Mr. Brogan says. "But if
the powers that be don’t want it to happen, it either won’t get off the
ground or it will crash and burn immediately after takeoff."
The
state’s elected officials are ready to shake up Passhe, according to
David G. Argall, a Republican state senator. The enrollment statistics
for the system convinced him and many of his legislative colleagues that
the status quo can’t endure. Mr. Argall was the lead sponsor of the
measure that called for the Senate Legislative Budget and Finance
Committee to review Passhe. The committee’s review will not be completed
until months after Passhe’s review, but Mr. Argall says he’s "hopeful
that they come up with very similar answers. This way we can say to
everyone we have looked under every rock, we’ve asked every possible
question."
Even if there is consensus among decision makers, Mr.
Brogan says he expects that there will be objections, opposition, and
arguments over what happens to Passhe and its institutions. He hopes
that all parties to the discussion can put their own turf concerns aside
and think about the bigger picture. The outcome of this process could
determine not only the fate of 14 universities, their faculties, and
their students, it could set the course for higher education in
Pennsylvania for future generations.
"This thing’s going to long
outlive the chancellor," Mr. Brogan says. "It’s going to outlive any of
the 14 presidents. It’s going to outlive most of the people in the
General Assembly. And therefore it needs to be designed with the best
interests of those to come."
Lee Gardner writes about the
management of colleges and universities, higher-education marketing, and
other topics. Follow him on Twitter @_lee_g, or email him at lee.gardner@chronicle.com.
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