Pennsylvania State University will turn 14 of its two-year campuses into four-year colleges this summer, changing the face of Pennsylvania higher education in ways that concern officials of other colleges there.
After decades of discussion, Penn State took a hard look recently at expanding bachelor’s-degree programs on its 17 “Commonwealth campuses,” some of which already offer a few four-year programs on top of many lower-division courses. Administrators had two concerns: Too many students were enrolled at the Penn State flagship at University Park, and too few students who began baccalaureate course work at the two-year sites earned a Penn State bachelor’s degree.
In July, the university will elevate 14 of the campuses to baccalaureate-degree-granting status, adding programs in business, health sciences, and occupational therapy at various locations. (The other three campuses could follow down the road.) About 1,500 more students are projected to enroll on these campuses by 1998, mostly in the upper-division programs.
“With this plan, we’re trying to accommodate the intense interest in Penn State and allow our current students to complete their degree at a Penn State campus closer to home,” says Graham B. Spanier, the university’s president.
At a time when Pennsylvania and about 40 other states expect their college-going populations to swell over the next decade, the university’s plan to expand existing campuses at no cost to the government appeals to many state officials. Not so for Penn State’s competitors.
Leaders of many other colleges, along with some legislative allies, see worrisome implications in the opening of 14 more baccalaureate campuses in Pennsylvania, which already ranks third among states in the number of four-year public and private campuses. Critics fear that the new campuses will set off frenzied competition for students and for bigger and better academic programs, possibly delivering a fatal blow to small colleges.
“I imagine officials at every college are sitting down and saying, ‘How can we position ourselves to respond to Penn State’s moves?’” says Brian C. Mitchell, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania."Internecine warfare will break out -- public to public, private to private, and public to private.”
The concern is so great because Penn State is one of the most popular universities in the United States, claiming to receive more SAT scores from high-school seniors than any other college. Its competitors fear that many Pennsylvania residents will jump at the chance to earn a bachelor’s degree at a “local” Penn State for only about $1,500 a year more than the 14 universities in the State System of Higher Education charge.
The Penn State expansion also comes at a time when several Pennsylvania colleges are struggling to fill their own classrooms. Penn State will not cap freshman enrollments on most of the enhanced campuses, and will add more four-year programs on some of them after 1998. Critics of the plan say the university is acting selfishly when college and state officials should together be charting a comprehensive course for the future of higher education in Pennsylvania.
Opponents made this case last year to the state Education Secretary, Eugene W. Hickok, who is authorized to block growth plans like Penn State’s if he finds that they are not in Pennsylvania’s best interest. Officials of several colleges told him that they could accommodate thousands more students without creating new programs.
David E. McFarland is president of Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, a public institution about 65 miles northwest of Philadelphia, which this fall plans to offer upper-division courses at two community colleges in the same area.
“I was concerned about the risk of duplication, since we’ll be working with two colleges that are very close to the Penn State campuses,” he says.
In January, however, Dr. Hickok granted four-year-baccalaureate status to 14 of the 17 campuses. Penn State agreed to enrollment caps at the two Philadelphia-area colleges, and agreed to delay expanding its three Pittsburgh-area campuses because of the Secretary’s concerns about potential program duplication. Over all, however, Dr. Hickok praised the university for tackling issues of access and financing.
“Let me applaud Penn State for launching a long-overdue conversation in Pennsylvania about the current and future needs of our Commonwealth in the area of higher education,” he wrote to President Spanier.
But some lawmakers say the Education Department’s review has pointed up a problem in state government: the lack of a higher-education coordinating board. Several state and college officials have questioned the department’s expertise to evaluate the Penn State proposal, since Dr. Hickok’s predecessors had opted not to review some institutions’ growth plans.
State Representative Ronald R. Cowell, Democratic co-chairman of the House Education Committee, says Dr. Hickok did not have the resources and information to undertake"a thorough review” of Penn State’s plan, which the lawmaker believes will cause more students than estimated to attend the enhanced campuses.
“Out of this experience comes the lesson that we in the legislature need to review the process in Pennsylvania for expansions of institutions and programs,” Mr. Cowell says. “I’ll be absolutely shocked if Penn State doesn’t ask for additional money related to expanded programs and enrollments across the institution.”
A spokesman for Dr. Hickok’s office defended the evaluation, noting that analysts had spent months examining the plan on a campus-by-campus basis. Officials pored over enrollment and demographic data, college documents, and nearly 1,000 pieces of correspondence. The university’s promise to pay for the enhancements with new tuition revenue on the enlarged campuses was also persuasive.
But some legislators remain skeptical. A Senate committee grilled Dr. Spanier last month about the university’s requests for an 8-per-cent budget increase and more than $70-million for construction projects on the Commonwealth campuses; the university president said the general-fund increase would go to current operations, and that the construction projects were unrelated to future growth. The university now receives $281-million from the state, close to 20 per cent of the funds the state spends on colleges and student aid.
Robert E. Dunham, a senior vice-president at Penn State, says the expansion will proceed in line with student enrollment, so that new costs will not outpace new tuition revenue."We’re trying to serve the needs of location-bound, mostly non-traditional students, and those needs simply won’t require 20 or 30 new programs,” he says.
But because Pennsylvania’s higher-education system is so large -- with the nation’s sixth-highest number of students in 1994 and an annual state appropriation of about $1.5-billion -- changes at one major university tend to make officials of the others fret about money.
“The logic escapes me,” says Dr. Mitchell, of the private-college group."You cannot maintain the historically high level of quality that Penn State exhibits and aspires to and maintain that you don’t need a greater subsidy.”
If Penn State increases attendance and graduation rates on its branch campuses and reduces the strain on University Park, all without more state money, state officials may pressure other colleges to restructure as well. Policy makers in other states also may take notice, as they study ways to accommodate larger populations of high-school graduates. Pennsylvania expects an increase of 11,000 to 17,000 students by 2007; Pennsylvania colleges now enroll more than 600,000 students.
To prepare for this growth, Dr. Mitchell has called on Governor Tom Ridge, a Republican, to begin a fresh examination of how the state finances colleges. But some legislators see little good in another study, noting that one in 1994 went nowhere.
State Senator James J. Rhoades, a Republican who is chairman of the Senate Education Committee, says other colleges should take a page from Penn State’s plan and begin their own restructuring."Penn State took the initiative and is up and running,” he says."The other colleges have to play catch-up in a competitive mode.”
Campuses That Will Gain Baccalaureate-Degree Status on July 1, 1997
Abington-Ogontz campus Allentown campus Altoona campus Berks campus Delaware County campus DuBois campus Fayette campus Hazleton campus Mont Alto campus Schuylkill campus Shenango campus Wilkes-Barre campus Worthington-Scranton campus York campus
Four-Year and Graduate Institutions
Great Valley Graduate Center Harrisburg, the Capital College The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Pennsylvania College of Technology Penn State Erie, the Behrend College University Park
Campuses That Will Remain Two-Year Institutions
Beaver campus McKeesport campus New Kensington campus
Source: Pennsylvania State University