Opinion: Legislature should fund college students, not administrators
As Pennsylvania’s budget stalemate persists, so does the limbo on funding for four state-related universities. Under debate is Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed collective 7% funding increase for the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, Penn State and Lincoln University.
Pennsylvania House Republicans want more accountability and transparency for these schools’ appropriations. Added objections to the increased aid include potential tuition hikes, specifically, at Pitt, Penn State and Temple.
In Pennsylvania, the costs to attend a four-year public university are 69.6% above the national average. Pitt, Penn State and Temple remain among the most expensive public universities nationwide.
Though I wanted to attend Penn State, I couldn’t justify incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt.
Fortunately, with the help of my parents and financial aid, I attended Grove City College, a private institution, at an affordable price. While I respect Penn State (and love its football team), it isn’t fair that a handful of universities in our state receive hundreds of millions in funding with little commitment to affordability.
Instead, the Pennsylvania General Assembly should redirect that funding directly to students, empowering them to make the career choices that work for them.
For context, schools within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) are state owned and regulated. However, state-related universities, while public, are only partially state-funded and operate with little oversight of their appropriations or how these affect tuition rates.
In Pitt and Penn State’s case, investment returns are the heaviest driver to budgets well above state appropriations and tuition. U.S. Department of Education data shows, in 2021, Pitt received 41.8% of its revenue from investment income. Meanwhile, state appropriations and tuition only composed 4.7% and 14.2% of funding, respectively.
Penn State’s numbers are similar. A fifth of its revenue came from investment income in 2021, while state appropriations and tuition were 3.2% and 18.7%, respectively. Since state appropriations are such a small percentage of these schools’ budgets, it’s obvious a lack of state funding is not the primary cause of increased tuition.
The limited oversight of state-related university appropriations stems from state law, which mandates how to spend the money but doesn’t require the schools to track appropriation expenditures. Instead, they report expenses by broad category. Reports from the Pennsylvania Office of the Budget only detail how much the schools have spent without specifics.
Moreover, state-related schools are not subject to our state’s open records law, while local governments and PASSHE are. This lack of transparency prevents lawmakers and the public from obtaining important information about operations. From progressives to conservatives, Pennsylvanians across the political spectrum are troubled by this issue.
In 2008, former Penn State President Graham Spanier claimed requiring the school to comply with the Right-to-Know law would compromise donor privacy, contracts with companies (e.g., Nike), and contracted research. However, Spanier’s claim ignores many of Penn State’s peers, such as Ohio State University, that follow their states’ open records laws and still have large research contracts, endowments, and athletic departments.
From the limited disclosures state-related schools do make, we know that teaching expenses are a fraction of their spending. Penn State spent 27% of its budget on instructional and academic support expenses in 2021. Meanwhile, Pitt and Temple spent 48% and 24%, respectively.
These numbers raise the question of why our state subsidizes select universities instead of funding individual students to empower them to make the educational choice that best suits their needs, whether community college, trade school, or a four-year university.
Instead of giving more money to a few universities, the legislature should instead shift that funding to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), which provides grants up to $5,750 to college students based on their financial need. Funding for PHEAA’s grant program is about $33 million lower in the latest budget than it was in the 2011–12 budget. Bolstering PHEAA’s dynamic funding model would allow young Pennsylvanians like me to receive the best postsecondary education possible, ensure that our state remains competitive, and provide opportunities for students to thrive.
Jonathan McGee is a policy intern at the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank.
