Penn State President Rodney Erickson delivered the following opening remarks to the Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee on Feb. 29. Erickson spoke to the committee for 1.5 hours and underlined the effect that continued cuts in state support would have on Penn State's ability to carry out its mission as Pennsylvania's Land-Grant University.
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When Penn Staters talk about the land-grant mission, many people may think we are simply harkening back to old times in a quaint act of nostalgia. That is simply not true. The land-grant mission is as relevant today as it was 150 years ago, and is found in nearly everything that Penn State does and represents.
One cannot understand the Penn State of today -- our mission, where our many facilities are located, or the cost of tuition -- without understanding the 1863 agreement between the federal government and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to establish a new type of institution of higher education. In fact, the next time you vote on an appropriations bill for Penn State -- and we hope you will do that again this year – note that you are amending the original Act of April 1, 1863 establishing the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania as the Commonwealth’s land-grant college. In that Act of the General Assembly the state promised to support this institution established:
…without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactic, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts (aka engineering), in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life. (Morrill Act of 1862)
In exchange for this promise of support, the federal government “granted” 30,000 acres of federal land per each senator or representative – hence the name “land grant” -- the proceeds of the sale of which were to be used to establish a new type of higher education institution driven by scientific research, affordable to the working classes, and dedicated to the promotion of the general welfare of the Commonwealth.
Born during the height of the Civil War, and continuing through every major challenge faced by this state and nation, the Commonwealth steadfastly built upon this promise for nearly 150 years to construct the Penn State you know today – one of the nation’s great research universities with over 90,000 students, 24 campuses, delivery units in every county of the state, and around the globe through our online World Campus.
Penn State’s research driven academic program -- unlike a general college or liberal arts college -- is at the forefront of creating new knowledge, and educating the scientists, engineers and business leaders of the future. This mission, by its very nature, is a costly enterprise that demands state-of-the-art facilities, equipment, and laboratories. You simply cannot train the next generation of nuclear engineers without costly equipment, and for Penn State, that means having a research nuclear reactor on campus.
Together, the Commonwealth and Penn State devised a two-pronged approach to keep this type of academic program affordable and accessible to the children of lower income and working families. First, like most publicly supported universities, Penn State offers in-state tuition that is substantially less than the actual cost of instruction, and about 60 percent of the rate paid by nonresidents of Pennsylvania. That difference of as much as $12,000 per year is made possible by the direct annual appropriation to Penn State.
Second, over a century-long period, the Commonwealth and Penn State added 19 undergraduate campuses besides the original campus in State College, which over the years became more oriented toward upper division and graduate programs of study. This strategy of establishing multiple points of access has allowed generations of Pennsylvania students to afford a top-notch degree in a wide range of fields that otherwise may have been out of their reach.
Most of these regional or Commonwealth Campuses had humble beginnings -- sometimes a single building, sometimes in reused facilities, but most often no more than a small cluster of buildings. Initially, the Commonwealth Campuses focused on providing the first two years of instruction, primarily for commuter students, who saved on the costs of attendance by living at home, and in many cases continuing to work at their full or part-time jobs. Penn State became the Commonwealth’s largest producer of associate degree graduates, as well as a legion of students who subsequently changed assignment to the University Park campus and completed one of what are now more than 160 baccalaureate degrees. In subsequent years, Penn State’s Commonwealth Campuses have become highly flexible in meeting a variety of educational needs, branching out from engineering technology education to offering programs in business and science as well as numerous professional majors and career development opportunities for adult students. Today, these campuses confer more than 4,500 degrees -- nearly a quarter of all Penn State degrees -- and have become a key component of the state’s higher education offerings.
These Commonwealth Campuses were highly sought after by communities throughout the state, and often depended on the generous contributions of community leaders and the political and financial support of the General Assembly. Remarkably, this system of regional campuses, our Commonwealth Campuses, is still the main access point to a Penn State education for a majority of incoming freshmen, and particularly for the children of the state’s working families. Note that:
-- The median family income of students attending the Commonwealth Campuses is $55,987. That is 10% less than the state’s median family income of $61,890 in 2010;
-- About 40 percent of Commonwealth Campus students are first generation college students; and
-- 62 percent of these students work an average of 22 hours a week.
Penn State’s Commonwealth Campuses are an unqualified success story not replicated anywhere else in the nation. It’s a success in which the state can take equal credit because, but for the continuous financial and political support of the state, these campuses would not have been created or continue to exist. One measure of this success can be illustrated this way: The debt load of a recent Penn State graduate who started at a Commonwealth Campus is nearly the same as that of a student who started at University Park, where the median family income is nearly 40 percent greater than the median family income at the Commonwealth campus locations. Put another way, the Commonwealth Campus structure equalizes educational opportunities for students from lower income families.
That original land-grant mission “…to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes,” is as alive at Penn State in 2012 as it was in 1863. The question is whether this is still the mission that the Commonwealth wants Penn State to pursue, and whether the state is willing to continue to invest in that mission. Or, does the state want us to continue to pursue the land-grant mission, but in a different way? If that is the case, I would urge you to enter into a dialogue with us about changes you’d like to see at Penn State, rather than simply cutting our appropriation so severely that we’re forced to consider a future with little or no state support.
I cannot tell you what our Board of Trustees will decide to do in response to this proposed second consecutive large cut in state support. That may depend on whether it looks like this is just the second installment of a planned elimination of our appropriation, or if there is some signal from the General Assembly that this is the last of the cuts. What I can tell you, though, is that this proposed cut will change Penn State. And, if this is the direction the state will continue to go in, it will change our institution dramatically. Simply put, Penn State cannot maintain its two tools to keep Penn State as affordable as it is – the in-state tuition discount and the 19 undergraduate Commonwealth Campuses -- without the state appropriation.
I did not spend much time in my remarks today talking about Penn State’s record as a top research university, because I’m certain that Penn State will continue to be one of the nation’s great research universities, regardless of what happens with our appropriation. What I am NOT certain of is whether for most Pennsylvanians, Penn State will still be accessible or affordable. I can tell you that there is no private research university that operates 24 campuses, and nearly all cost more than $40,000 per year in tuition.
Recently I shared with our Board of Trustees this assessment: “I believe the great challenge before all of us in the higher education sector is to define a path forward that will allow us to improve learning outcomes for our students while finding ways to deliver that education at a rate of cost increase that is less than we have experienced over the past two decades. In short, we must challenge ourselves to become more effective at what we do while simultaneously being more efficient at what we do. This must be everyone's goal: faculty, staff, students and administrators, working together.”
Penn State will continue to work hard to be excellent stewards of the resources you have provided to us. We will do our very best to keep our tuition increases as low as possible, to help make the dream of a Penn State education affordable for the sons and daughters of the working classes of Pennsylvania, just as we did throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The question for the General Assembly is, will you help us meet that challenge, or will Penn State have to go it alone?