Penn State poised to ask the PA General Assembly for a historic increase in state funding
Update: The Penn State board of trustees on Friday afternoon unanimously approved the total $469.5 million state appropriation request.
Penn State is poised to request a historic increase in state funding that is tied to general support, with the land-grant university set to ask for a $115.2 million boost — a 47.6% rise to $357.3 million — for the next fiscal year.
The formal request, which will first need to be approved Friday by the full board of trustees, would become the largest requested increase in Penn State history. If eventually granted for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which starts next July, Penn State would pour millions into retaining faculty, while freezing in-state tuition the next academic year and funneling additional grants and funds toward low- and middle-income Pennsylvania students.
But a future request hardly means it would be a lock to be granted.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly declined over the summer to approve a 5% increase in Penn State’s 2022-2023 general support appropriation, which also helps off-set the cost of in-state tuition. Instead, legislators elected to give the university $242.1 million in general support for the third straight year.
Penn State is now set to request nearly a 50% general support increase, to $357.3 million. Overall, Penn State would request a total appropriation of $469.5 million, with all but about $10 million of the increases going to general support.
A matter of ‘fairness’
On the surface, Penn State’s call for a significant increase to its general support appropriation might seem extreme. But university officials tried to put the request into perspective.
Right now, officials said, Pennsylvania’s largest university receives about $5,600 in funding for each in-state student — which trails behind other public schools in the commonwealth. Pitt receives $9,049 per student, while those in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education receive $8,378 and Temple gets $8,275.
By increasing Penn State’s general support appropriation $115.2 million, officials said, that would bring the university’s per-student funding up to Temple’s.
“We are grateful to the General Assembly and, truthfully, as we talk to people, we realize that many people are not even aware of this discrepancy,” university President Neeli Bendapudi said Thursday, during a board of trustees committee meeting.
Officials also pointed out that the university receives less funding now, when it comes to general support, than it did in 2010-2011. And Pennsylvania annually ranks among the worst states in the country for per-capita support of higher education.
Still, if the legislature refused to approve a 5% increase over the summer, what makes Penn State think it would approve an increase nearly 10 times larger next summer?
“I would answer by saying we’ve never presented an appropriations request like this before in our history,” Zack Moore, vice president for government and community relations, told the CDT. “We never presented the General Assembly with this data, in terms of a per-student appropriation. We believe that this will get people’s attention, that they will be surprised by the fact Penn State receives $2,500 less per Pennsylvania student than any other public university in the state. And we’re hopeful that issue of fairness, that matter of fairness, resonates with elected officials.”
How would PSU spend the extra funds?
In a presentation Thursday to the trustees’ Committee on Finance, Business, and Capital Planning — which unanimously voted to send the request to the full board — officials broke down the extra $115.2 million into four categories:
- Talent Retention: $55.7M
- Strategic Priorities (consistent with commonwealth needs, such as engineering and health care): $29.7M
- Asset Preservation: $14.9M
- Student Aid/Student Success: $14.9M
“This is not a new issue,” Moore said during Thursday’s meeting. “This really is a challenge that is almost 50 years in the making. This dates back to the early 1970s and late 1960s, in terms of Penn State’s growth over that long period of time vs. other universities.
“So I want to be very careful not to lay blame on anyone, but this is something we uncovered over the last year. When we shared it (with Bendapudi and others) ... it really became an important point for them to say this doesn’t feel right, and we really need to try to correct this on behalf of our students.”
Here is a breakdown of the university’s overall proposed appropriations request that totals $469.5 million:
- General Support: $357.3 million, an increase of $115.2 million.
- Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension: $60.6 million, an increase of $2.9 million. (Additionally, PSU is requesting $2 million in new funding to implement the Emerging and Advanced Technology Initiative within the College of Agricultural Sciences.)
- Pennsylvania College of Technology: $31.5 million, an increase of $4.7 million.
- Penn State Health and the College of Medicine: $15.9 million, an increase of $756,000
- Invent Penn State: $2.35 million, no increase from last year
Looking ahead
Any appropriations request still has a long way to go before the General Assembly votes on it in Harrisburg.
As long as the full board of trustees formally approves the request Friday afternoon, Penn State officials then plan to discuss it with state senators and representatives later this month or the next. Ultimately, a vote on the matter likely won’t come until next summer.
The CDT reached out to all four chairs on the state legislature’s appropriation committees for comment — two Republicans; two Democrats — but just one, Rep. Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, responded with a written statement.
“We need a wide-ranging and honest discussion of all needs across Pennsylvania during the budget process, so we appreciate Penn State’s candor,” he wrote.
“Pennsylvania ranks 49th in the nation in per-capita state support for higher education. If the General Assembly is serious about making college more affordable and addressing student indebtedness, we must have a real conversation about the state’s role in funding our institutions of higher education and this is a strong first step.”
Penn State officials said Thursday they expect the university to operate at about a $149 million budget deficit this fiscal year. Bendapudi has pledged to have the budget balanced by 2025.
In two recent town halls, Bendapudi said there were no plans to close any commonwealth campuses and other officials said there were no plans for mass layoffs.
This story was originally published September 22, 2022 at 2:59 PM.
