Leaders of four Pennsylvania state universities that receive state tax money but operate with minimal government oversight said Thursday they support Gov. Josh Shapiro’s call for a performance-based approach to determining their funding.
The University of Pittsburgh and Lincoln, Penn State and Temple universities received $603.5 million in state funding this year, with the state Legislature stipulating that each of them maintain tuition levels in the next academic year.
Shapiro budget proposal for 2024-25 would boost funding to universities by $30 million, or 5%, and distribute the money using a performance-based formula that rewards them for achieving positive results. A 15% boost for Pennsylvania public universities would be distributed using a similar formula, Shapiro’s proposal says.
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Asked by state Rep. Regina Young (D-Philadelphia) about their feelings on Shapiro’s performance-based funding formula indicators, state school chancellors and presidents said that while they did not provide much detail, performance-based funding is generally a good practice in higher education.
Metrics should be straightforward, pliant and reflective of each institution’s mission, said Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi. She added that they typically focus on student outcomes. “What do you want for the citizens of the Commonwealth, for the needs of the workforce and for the development of the Commonwealth itself?”
Joan Gabel, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, said that in her experience, the outcomes-based systems that have the fewest unintended consequences are those that are developed in partnership with legislators and that reflect the differing goals of families, students and the state.
“I think this gives us the best chance and we very much support this decision,” Gabel said.
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House Budget Appropriations Committee Chairman Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) asked Lincoln University President Brenda Allen about performance-based budgeting and how it is working for historically black colleges and universities like Lincoln.
“When you think about a Temple student versus a Lincoln student and you think about what performance looks like… what could be different that, if we measured it incorrectly, could have a negative impact?”
Allen, who previously worked with formula funding as vice chancellor at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, said tracking “absolute values” becomes a problem when measuring HBCU performance. Sixty-five percent of Lincoln’s students come from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, Allen said.
“I won’t have the same retention rate as Temple, Pitt or Penn State, where there’s a large percentage of students for whom finances aren’t going to be a factor,” Allen said, adding that if the funding formula takes into account the diversity of schools, its predictability is a benefit.
Restructuring higher education in Pennsylvania is one of the main initiatives in Shapiro’s budget.
In addition to performance-based grants to state colleges, Shapiro called for combining the 10 universities of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) with the state’s 15 community colleges under a common governance structure.
Tuition for low- and moderate-income students will be capped at $1,000 per semester, and Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency grants for students attending private colleges will be increased by $1,000.
The Shapiro Project on Higher Education in Pennsylvania builds on the work of the Higher Education Working Group, composed of university leaders that Shapiro convened to develop the recommendations.
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Republican lawmakers have criticized Shapiro’s higher education reform plan for lacking details and requiring what Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), the ranking GOP member of the House Budget Appropriations Committee, called “a massive and unsustainable spending increase.”
“The bottom line is that this plan creates more red tape, requires more spending, and creates more questions than it answers,” Grove said in a statement last month. “The position of House Republicans on education, from pre-K through college, is simple: fund students, not institutions.”
During a Wednesday hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on education, state Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-Montgomery) noted that while more public funding for higher education is proposed, enrollment in PASSHE universities has declined significantly. Pennycuick asked Education Secretary Khalid Mumin to consider prioritizing career and technical education over university funding.
“That’s what’s going to grow our economy. That philosophy degree, maybe not so much,” Pennycuick said.
Mumin said that as a member of “The “college or nothing” generation, who took on significant debt to pay for college, sees attitudes toward higher education changing.
“We all still have a lot of debt. That’s part of the focus of this plan, affordability, access,” Mumin said, before Pennycuick interrupted to say that higher education funding should go directly to students and their families, not to systems.
Pennycuick said this would enable students to choose an education that provides marketable skills, adding that for those who want to go to college but can’t afford it have other options.
“You can go to college for free. Join the Army. … Three of my four kids … did just that. So there are ways for poor, inner-city people, black, brown, whatever. They can go to school for free. Join the Army, join the National Guard,” said Pennycuick, an Army veteran who earned his degree while serving in the U.S. Army Reserve. Pennycuick has introduced a series of bills to address education and military service.
Pennycuick’s comments drew criticism from a number of Democrats, with Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee spokesman Abhi Rahman condemning them in a statement about the committee’s campaign to secure majorities in both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature, calling them “racist, disgusting language” that “underscores how little the Republican Party understands the true needs of Pennsylvania families.”
“Racist ideas like those espoused by Senator Pennycuick create dangerous policies that harm communities trying to live the American dream. The stakes could not be higher to keep Republican extremism at bay, which is why electing Democrats to the state legislature is critical,” Rahman said.
During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Lincoln, Penn State, Pitt and Temple on Thursday, Rep. Jesse Topper (R-Bedford), the ranking Republican in the House,
The education commission asked university presidents whether they check how many graduates work in the fields in which they earned their degrees and whether this would be a way to assess the performance of their schools.
Gabel responded that the U.S. Department of Labor tracks statistics on the jobs held by people with certain college degrees, but whether a person works in an industry related to their degree is not necessarily a measure of a successful college education.
“As someone who is a philosophy major who is clearly not doing what you signed up for in college … there are certain majors that … lead to very specific careers that have very little to do with what you signed up for,” Gabel said.
Allen, Lincoln’s president, said that while some majors, such as nursing and teaching, are in high demand, the sectors of the economy where demand is high change over time. Because maintaining Pennsylvania’s workforce is a priority, it’s also critical to track whether college students are prepared for the jobs that will be available after graduation, Allen said.
“I think it’s going to be really important to make sure that we can use both of those paths and find a funding formula,” Allen said.
