Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania is the latest in a string of first-term Republican governors to try his hand at a major higher-education reform. If the examples of his peers are any indication, the chances of success are mixed, at best.
The governor was elected in 2010 on a popular pledge to fill the state’s $4-billion budget gap without raising taxes. But his attempts to slash spending on higher education as much as 30 percent in the current budget—and 50 percent the previous year—have met with disapproval from lawmakers and the public.
Now, saying he wants to make higher education more affordable and accessible, Governor Corbett has appointed a committee to advise him on how colleges should be financed and how they could better serve the needs of Pennsylvania’s employers. In addition to insisting that tuition has risen too fast, the governor has questioned whether the state’s four-year colleges are doing enough to improve Pennsylvania’s economy. He argues that Pennsylvania needs to produce more skilled-trade workers, like carpenters, electricians, and plumbers, and fewer schoolteachers.
But not everyone agrees about either the nature of the problems or the governor’s solutions. His critics say the rise in tuition is caused by cuts in state money. And, they add, he is selling Pennsylvania’s economy and its citizens short—a 2010 study on the future work-force needs of the 50 states concluded that Pennsylvania will need many more workers with baccalaureate and graduate degrees than with associate degrees or with nondegree training after high school.
Some higher-education-policy experts say that the advisory panel is too little, too late, and that it won’t be able to do more than offer political cover for a governor whose popularity is fading. “We knew we were facing revenue shortfalls, so why wasn’t this task force proposed when the budget passed last year?” asked Joni E. Finney, who studies state higher-education policy and financing at the University of Pennsylvania.
Little Success
Several other Republican governors have sought to make their marks on higher education since they swept to power in the 2010 elections, but with little overall success.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker last year proposed autonomy from the state system for the flagship campus, in Madison. The plan was derailed by leaders of regional campuses concerned that their institutions would lose political clout if the flagship split off on its own. A second measure that gave all of the system’s campuses more regulatory freedom did succeed in the Legislature.
Similarly, Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio supported a plan to give some of the state’s universities “enterprise” status—they would get less state money and operate with less state oversight—but the measure was widely opposed by university presidents and has stalled in the General Assembly.
Gov. Brian E. Sandoval of Nevada championed a bill last year that would create a “knowledge fund” to help faculty researchers at public colleges create and attract new businesses. The bill passed, but the state couldn’t afford to put any money into it.
In Florida, lawmakers panned Gov. Rick Scott’s ideas to make higher education more accountable, and his proposals were not even introduced in legislation this year.
Demand Collides With Cuts
A collision of economic and demographic changes is driving demands for greater accountability and productivity in higher education, said Travis J. Reindl, a higher-education policy researcher with the bipartisan National Governors Association. At the same time that state support for higher education is contracting, the demand for college degrees is increasing because employers are looking for well-qualified workers, he said.
Similar forces are at work in Pennsylvania, where Governor Corbett had pledged to rely solely on significant cuts in state spending to close budget gaps. He has not only stuck to his pledge not to raise taxes to meet Pennsylvania’s revenue shortfall but has also refused to consider fee increases or a tax on the state’s fast-growing natural-gas industry. Much of the state sits above the Marcellus Shale, one of the largest natural-gas fields in the world.
But higher education was one of the areas of spending identified for big cuts in the governor’s first budget: The state’s four-year universities were slated for a 50-percent reduction, perhaps the biggest one-time percentage cut in state higher-education funds in U.S. history, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Lawmakers balked at such big cuts, settling instead on a less draconian reduction of about 20 percent.
For the coming fiscal year, Mr. Corbett has recommended a 30-percent cut for three of Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities—Pennsylvania State and Temple Universities, and the University of Pittsburgh—while the fourth, Lincoln University, would receive the same amount it’s getting this year. The 14 state-owned universities would see a 20-percent cut, and community colleges would see a cut of nearly 4 percent.
Some key legislators have already voiced their opposition to another round of deep cuts for public colleges, saying higher education has shouldered enough of the burden. And the governor’s approval rating has fallen to 41 percent, at least in part because of the proposed cuts in higher education, according to results of a poll released March 15 by Quinnipiac University.
New Approach
At the same time that Mr. Corbett released his budget proposals, he named a 30-member panel that he asked to take a broader look at higher education in the state.
The advisory committee is seeking systemic, long-term solutions for how the state government, business, and colleges—both public and private—can better work together, said Rob Wonderling, chairman of the panel and president of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. While the budget cuts in higher education have captured headlines, the group is not meant to consider short-term fixes for financing colleges, he said.
But Governor Corbett’s remarks to and about the committee have sparked controversy. His proposed cuts to the three state-related universities, which now get about 5 percent of their overall budgets from the state, have prompted discussions about whether they might consider becoming completely private institutions—a move the governor was quoted as saying he would understand.
The governor has also criticized higher education for producing too many degrees in fields in which the state has no open jobs, and he has said that institutions should focus more on training workers in the trades. Meanwhile, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce concluded that by 2018 nearly 60 percent of jobs in Pennsylvania will require a postsecondary credential, and new jobs requiring some college will grow by nearly three times as much as jobs that need only a high-school diploma or less.
Ms. Finney, at the University of Pennsylvania, said the governor and the public need to decide what kind of economy they want the state to have. “You could,” she said, “create an economy that relies on plumbers and electricians.”
But she added: “I think that’s the wrong move to make in the kind of world we live in. The people of Pennsylvania should be able to compete in the world economy.”
Some members of the advisory panel, too, want to emphasize the need for more than just job training after high school.
Davie Jane Gilmour, president of the Pennsylvania College of Technology, said she had been seeing more potential students delay their college educations because they could earn $80,000 working in the state’s burgeoning natural-gas industry. But the physical demands of those jobs eventually take their toll, and those workers will need more education to move up or out of that field, said Ms. Gilmour, a member of the governor’s advisory committee.
Another member of the panel, Kathleen A. Gallagher, a lawyer with the Pittsburgh-based firm Eckert Seamans, said her firm needs well-educated employees at all levels.
“What we can’t lose is the concept of education for education’s sake. Part of the purpose of postsecondary education is training individuals to think,” she said.
