Pa. college leaders warn of aid cuts' impacts

HARRISBURG - Leaders of Temple, Pennsylvania State, and other universities that rely on state aid warned Wednesday of reduced academic offerings, salary freezes, job losses, and tuition hikes if Gov. Corbett carries out his plan to slash that aid.

Corbett's proposal to halve the state's higher-education budget "is deep, disproportionate, and damaging to the most productive institutions in Pennsylvania," said Mark Nordenberg, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh.

The testimony before a state Senate committee came on the first day of hearings on Corbett's $27.3 billion spending plan, and just hours after his budget czar offered a warning of his own. He said the state, which faces a $4 billion deficit, simply could not afford to keep subsidizing the colleges at current rates and instead should consider funneling tuition grants directly to students.

In his budget address last week, Corbett proposed dramatic cuts to higher education, including eliminating $625 million, or about 50 percent, of funding meant for 14 state-owned universities and four "state-related" universities - Temple, Penn State, Lincoln, and Pitt.

Temple president Ann Weaver Hart said that her school had reduced its expenditures year after year, but that the level of state cuts proposed this year would force tuition increases that could put the university out of reach for many.

"This would have an incredibly disproportionate impact on working and middle-class families," Hart said. When one factors in cuts proposed for Temple University Hospital, she said, "it piles on the most vulnerable people."

Hart and Lincoln University president Ivory Nelson said that to hold tuition increases down, they would have to consider salary freezes, consolidation of programs, and reduced services.

Temple received $167 million from the state for the fiscal year that will end June 30, or about 16 percent of the school's $1 billion annual budget.

Nelson told the panel that "the nature of university would significantly change" if the cuts go through as proposed. State appropriations account for 21 percent of Lincoln's $65 million budget in the current year.

Penn State president Graham Spanier, an outspoken critic of Corbett's funding proposal since it was announced, said misinformation was being spread about the university's state funding levels and graduation rates.

He also said it was unfair to blame the state's deficit on its universities, which he said had worked hard to rein in spending.

Regardless, Spanier said, the university would look at all other options before tuition increases.

"We promised not to put the burden on our backs of our current or prospective students to make up the cut on the table," he said.

Spanier said that if Corbett's proposed cuts were enacted in full, Penn State would have to eliminate 440 positions in agricultural research and cooperative extension services.

And that would be just the beginning.

"We have to operate on a balanced budget. The numbers are very dramatic, and they would have ripple effects through the institution," Spanier said. "I don't believe a decrease at this level would constitute what anyone would call a fair share."

Earlier Wednesday, Budget Secretary Charles Zogby told the Senate Appropriations Committee that Corbett had begun and wanted to continue a "discussion" of expanding tuition grants to students.

But Zogby said the administration was not seeking to privatize state schools. "No one is suggesting total abandonment of education funding," he said.

Still, Zogby said, he did not see where in the budget there would be money to restore college aid.

The war of words over higher-education funding came after an ominous report from Moody's Investors Service, which rates the creditworthiness of Pennsylvania's public university debt.

"If the budget passes as proposed, the universities will be driven to implement actions far beyond typical measures used by other public universities," said the report, issued Monday. "Severe expense actions would be needed."

At Wednesday's hearing, Republicans on the committee tried to calm college officials' fears by noting that with more than three months till the new fiscal year begins, the budget-making process had only begun.

"This is a work in progress," Sen. Robert Tomlinson (R., Bucks) said. "This is something we are going to resolve."