Pa. owned universities seek funding boost to fend off tuition hikes

• By Jaxon White/LNP | LancasterOnline

Pennsylvania higher education officials urged lawmakers on Tuesday to increase funding for public universities next year so state-owned institutions, like Millersville University, can avoid tuition hikes.

Leaders from Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education asked the Legislature for $661.1 million – a $40.3 million, or 6.5%, increase from this year’s funding – for state system schools in the 2025-26 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

That funding, according to interim PASSHE Chancellor Christopher Fiorentino, would allow tuition rates to be frozen across the system’s 10 universities and 14 campuses for an eighth consecutive year.

Without the requested funding, he said, schools in the system may need to raise their $7,716 yearly tuition next semester, impacting some 80,000 students – 90% of whom are from Pennsylvania.

Fiorentino said holding tuition levels at 2018 levels – at the same time the general cost of living increased – helped the state-owned universities attract enough students for a steady enrollment rate last year for the first time in more than a decade of declines.

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Though Senate Republicans have opposed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s overall budget proposal, little opposition was voiced to the proposed higher education budget at Tuesday’s hearing.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Scott Martin, a Martic Township Republican and 1994 Millersville alumnus, asked Fiorentino whether more can be done to boost the marketing of PASSHE schools to increase enrollment.

Fiorentino said PASSHE is adapting to reach more students through social media and online, but face-to-face interactions seem to have the best record of bringing in the most students.

“If you look at where each of the schools is attracting students from, most of them are coming from a relatively tight geography,” he said. “So we need to have boots on the ground in that geography, to be reaching out to those students, to those schools having open houses.”

During his address earlier this month, Shapiro touted the increase in PASSHE funding approved last year, as well as the formation of the State Board of Higher Education with the mission of drafting statewide plan for higher education.

“Now we need to build on that foundation,” Shapiro said.

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Budget trickle-down

Looming over Tuesday’s three-hour hearing were recent federal actions taken by President Donald Trump.

Democrat Judy Schwank of Berks County asked how Trump’s plan to cut the federal Education Department, which oversees the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, could impact the panelists’ organizations.

James Steeley, chief executive of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, said his organization’s financial aid for students is largely based on state funding. But federal cuts could cause delays in the state agency’s ability to obtain data that drives its programs.

Several Republicans – including Jarrett Coleman of Lehigh County and Kristin Phillips-Hill of York County – asked the panelists how state schools were ensuring Trump’s executive orders to uproot diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in higher education and ban transgender women athletes from sports teams.

“We certainly will fully comply with the law,” Fiorentino said.

As of Tuesday, Millersville maintained an Office of Diversity and Inclusion, a President’s Commission on Cultural Diversity & Inclusion, and had several web pages touting its work to promote such policies on campus.

“Currently, we don’t have any immediate concerns and are awaiting guidance from PASSHE legal counsel,” Janet Kacskos, director of communications Millersville, said Monday when asked by a reporter. “We have not received any information about losing funding for programs or scholarships.”

Reached Tuesday, Kacskos said she had no updates regarding Millersville’s policies.

Tuesday’s meeting kicked off the annual series of legislative budget hearings to analyze Shapiro’s proposal. The House’s Appropriations Committee will host a higher education budget hearing on Thursday at 10 a.m. in Harrisburg.

State Senators will continue their budget hearings on Wednesday, meeting with the Pennsylvania State Police at 9:30 a.m. and the Department of Health at 1 p.m.