Cynthia Shapira: Transforming Pa. higher education

To say that higher education is in a state of flux would be an understatement.

Around the world, colleges and universities are racing to adapt to the changing needs and demands of students, and to do so in ways that provide relevant and affordable education. At a time when more and more people question the value of higher education, data from any number of metrics — including those around personal finances, health, family stability and citizen engagement — bear out that it provides the most reliable means to upward social mobility.

Here in Pennsylvania, more than 60,000 high-demand jobs have gone unfilled because people cannot access or afford the degree or credential necessary to do the job. That means countless teachers, nurses, mental health professionals, technology experts and more are needed right now, and we have been facing these challenges for years.

Gov. Josh Shapiro recognizes the important work Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) has done with our own system redesign in recent years, and he seeks to infuse that spirit of transformation across the rest of Pennsylvania higher education.

The governor has proposed significant and long-overdue enhancements to the state’s public higher education sector. His blueprint centers on educating the citizenry and talent our state needs — driving down costs for students — and would, among other things, create a new, comprehensive public system consisting of our 10 PASSHE universities and the 15 community colleges.

This proposal is the most far-reaching call for a new public higher education system the country has seen in years. It would enable Pennsylvanians to enter into postsecondary education at many points and continue seamlessly through the bachelor’s level, master’s level and beyond. It would open more programs, more opportunities and more collaboration with and pipelines into the most critical industries that will advance the commonwealth’s competitiveness and economic development.

Further, the governor’s plan calls for greater monetary investment in students, seeking to make higher education more affordable to those who can least afford it. Because PASSHE universities and the community colleges serve nearly half of Pennsylvania’s low-income (Pell Grant eligible) students, it makes sense to focus this initiative there.

We in the PASSHE system have seen firsthand how active listening and intentional and collaborative system-thinking can mobilize people to achieve real outcomes. Just consider what has been accomplished in the past seven years. After undertaking an unprecedented top-to-bottom review of our system, we reoriented our own governance and leadership, focusing our attention on a comprehensive system redesign that has fundamentally changed its trajectory.

Today, we see stronger financial sustainability, increased enrollment of new students and greater coordination across the system. Most important, our students are the beneficiary of those efforts, which have allowed us to hold tuition flat for six straight years — a rare accomplishment in public higher education.

We are more collaborative and connected than ever before. Together, we not only share a common mission and common ideals, our universities quite literally share talent, services, resources, programs and so much more. That sharing has led to a level of “systemness” that had never existed in PASSHE. Understanding how to act as a system in the best sense will be critical in the creation of the new public higher education system for Pennsylvania.

We are by no means perfect. But what we have learned over the recent years is that we are stronger together. We can achieve so much more when we act together.

Imagine that level of student-centeredness, connection, collaboration and sharing — that level of systemness — across all 25 community college and the PASSHE university campuses. If done right, the new system has the power to transform how students approach the life-changing possibilities of higher education and substantially increase their access to the opportunities all institutions offer.

PASSHE has been rapidly evolving to meet the changing needs of students with a carefully planned strategy that has gained statewide and national attention. We intentionally have focused on maximizing the benefits of being a system to help our students and universities. But there is only so much we can do by ourselves. Shapiro sees the hard work we’ve done in our own system and seeks major reforms that go well beyond PASSHE — reforms that will help create the future we all want to see.

Cynthia Shapira is chair of the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.