AICUP Message to Friends of Independent Higher Education
 

January 30, 2017

State System to Conduct Strategic Review, Restructuring

Describing the State System of Higher Education’s operations as “unsustainable,” Chancellor Frank T. Brogan suggested last week that some of the 14 state-owned universities could be merged or even closed pending the outcome of a strategic review this year. “We will be taking a hard look at how we are organized today, and how we need to be organized in the future in order to continue to serve our students and the Commonwealth as its public university system,” Brogan said at the annual State of the System Address in Harrisburg. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for someone else to do it. We are the people who have to have the courage to step up and sound the clarion call for change.”
 
“We must take steps now to unshackle our universities from arcane rules, practices, and procedures that are preventing them from being the engines of opportunity they are intended to be. What worked 30 years ago in many cases isn’t working today,” Brogan continued. “Not only do we have an opportunity to make some dynamic changes; we have an obligation to do so. If our state-owned universities are to survive: more than that, if they are to thrive into the future, we must be willing to evolve.”
 
The system's overall enrollment has declined 12 percent in the last six years, and the state appropriation of $444 million this year is $60 million less than it was prior to the 2008 recession. "Every bit of this system will be examined, from how we operate the Office of the Chancellor to how we are organized as a system," Brogan said. "We are approaching this strategic review with no restraints, no preconceptions, and no limits."
 
The system has issued a request for proposals for a private consulting firm to conduct the strategic review. The system will include input from students, faculty, staff, alumni and elected leaders. About 90 percent of the 100,000 students in the system are Pennsylvania residents, and the majority remain in the state after graduation.

Did you know:  Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the Republican-controlled Legislature are facing a potential shortfall of nearly $3 billion through next summer, based on new projections by the state Legislature's Independent Fiscal Office.  Matthew Knittel, director of that office, said that year-over-year tax collections are virtually flat halfway through the fiscal year.