PSU morphed into ‘colossal enterprise’

A small farmers high school, then farmers college, was a land-grant charter intended for the higher education of ordinary, working-class folk close to the “ground” of the commonwealth’s culture and economy.

Yet, it has morphed into a colossal enterprise doing pricey postsecondary education while engaging in extensive commercial operations that include sale of valuable agricultural real estate for luxury student housing, potentially endangering the community’s precious water resource.

Does anyone — doesn’t everyone — see the sad irony and trustees’ fiduciary irresponsibility in all this? If the 32 presumably smart people entrusted with stewardship of this university’s property cannot or will not see the sale to Toll Brothers as a violation of the land grant charter, then the rest of us citizens are poorly served and thumbed-the-nose at.

I personally feel my Penn State degree demeaned, devalued and an embarrassment. Rah Penn State! Hah!

Ernest M. Hawk,

State College

This story was originally published July 14, 2017 at 10:51 PM with the headline "PSU morphed into ‘colossal enterprise’."