Clarion president hopeful universities merger reduces tuition by 25%

The university leader tasked with overseeing the merger plan for California, Clarion and Edinboro says she is confident her group can reduce students’ costs at the state-owned universities by 25%.

Experts say the cost reduction will be a heavy lift as colleges and universities across the nation face a new year fraught with fiscal peril.

In addition to leading 17 teams assembling a plan to fully integrate the three state-owned universities but keep each campus open, Clarion University President Dale-Elizabeth Pehrsson is taking on yet another task.

The board of governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) on Wednesday appointed Pehrsson interim president of Edinboro. She will replace outgoing President Guiyou Huang, who announced Monday he is resigning to assume a college presidency in Illinois.

A PASSHE spokesman said Pehrsson will continue to lead Clarion as she takes on a leadership role at Edinboro and works with the teams tasked to come up with specific plans for the proposed merger-integration. Officials say the schools, which have been struggling with shrinking enrollment for the last decade, can emerge stronger by leveraging their collective strengths.

“It’s encouraging to see our universities embrace collaboration and innovation so deeply,” said Fox Chapel’s Cindy Shapira, chairwoman of PASSHE’s board of governors. “By leading both Clarion and Edinboro, Dr. Pehrsson has become an embodiment of the ‘sharing system’ that we envision for the future.”

“It’s a pretty big job,” Pehrsson said. “One of reasons the chancellor and board of governors are recommending it is that one project folds into the other. This is a good chance for me to get my feet on the ground at Edinboro and I am looking forward to spending a lot of time up there. They have a strong history and good people.”

The proposed merger is one of two that PASSHE officials are weighing as they continue working toward a redesign of the state system. The 14 universities in the system are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester.

In addition to overhauls at individual universities, officials are studying a second proposal that calls for bringing three universities in the state’s Northern Tier — Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield — together as a single operating unit.

Pehrsson said she’s confident the so-called western integration working groups can come up with a plan that will not only leverage and maintain the individual strengths and identities of the three universities, but also meet Chancellor Dan Greenstein’s goal of cutting a quarter of costs incurred by students.

“That is audacious. That is a bold thing to try, but our students pay too much. They have too much debt and many don’t graduate because of that,” Pehrsson said.

Full-time students at the three universities now pay an average of about $22,000 a year for tuition, room and board, books and associated costs. That’s a little above the $20,000 a year EduData quoted as the average for students attending state universities across the country.

Pehrsson’s working groups are scheduled to present a merger plan to the PASSHE oversight board in April. If the board approves the plan, that would trigger a 60-day comment period, including two public hearings.

The proposed merger at the PASSHE schools, which have been a fixture in the small towns for which they are named for well over a century, comes at what could be an inflection point for the nation’s public colleges and universities.

As colleges scrambled to continue operations during the pandemic, operating costs soared and revenues plummeted.

Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education, a national trade group that focuses on higher education, said colleges across the country are looking at increased costs and lost revenues of about $120 billion. Public institutions stand to see even deeper cuts next year as states, which provide subsidies to public institutions, struggle to balance their budgets.

“Nobody likes it, but higher education sadly has become the default fiscal balancing wheel for state government,” said Hartle, the senior vice president of government relations at ACE.

Hartle said the proposed 25% cost reduction Pehrsson’s groups are seeking is among the largest cost reduction he has seen colleges attempt.

Dennis Jones, president emeritus of the Colorado-based National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, said his group has been working with public institutions around the country faced with budgetary challenges. Three years ago, they conducted a study of the PASSHE schools. Since then, they’ve seen similar issues surfacing elsewhere.

“It’s happening practically everywhere. In Alaska, they’ve taken a big hit. We’re working with Vermont state colleges now. They’re faced with same kinds of problems. Connecticut community colleges, they are faced with these same kind of problems,” he said.

Jones said this year’s worst shortfalls have been bridged with federal CARES Act grants to colleges and universities.

Pehrsson said she’s confident the PASSHE schools, which are challenged with offering a low-cost, high-quality education option for Pennsylvania students, can weather the challenge well and grow new opportunities at traditional campuses and through online options — provided they work together.

“What we’re doing now will place us in a good position to offer good education to students for many years to come,” she said.