Shapiro launches Board of Higher Education to get colleges, universities to 'row in the same direction'

Minutes into its inaugural meeting Thursday, the panel now tasked with bringing order to Pennsylvania’s loosely regulated system of colleges and universities received a pointed reminder of what’s at stake.

“Our costs are going up and our enrollment is going down. We’re not graduating enough students with the credentials we need to stay economically competitive — not next year, or the year after — but in the years to come,” Gov. Josh Shapiro told the newly created state Board of Higher Education.

Make no mistake, Shapiro, who developed the idea, isn’t the first politician over the decades to warn about unnecessary competition among campuses for state dollars and high tuition prices.

In fact, the State Board of Higher Education that was ushered into existence in this year’s state budget wasn’t even Shapiro’s first inclination. In his state budget address in February, he initially sought to bring the state’s two- and four-year campuses under a new governing body, part of his “blueprint for higher education.”

Instead, the “coordinating body,” as he calls it, that emerged while passing the state Legislature will maintain local institutional control, while working to thwart unnecessary competition among public and private schools.

It will create a formula to award state funding based on performance to the state-related institutions — the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, Temple and Lincoln universities.

It represents “the first significant reform of our higher-ed system in about 30 years. And this board is one piece of that reform,” Shapiro said.

“For the first time ever, Pennsylvania now has a coordinating board to create this strategic plan for higher education, connecting the dots, providing the resources that are necessary, increasing access and affordability across the board,” he said. “… (and) ensuring that higher ed meets our critical goals in the commonwealth, especially when it comes to economic growth and opportunity.”

Cynthia Shapira, who chairs the 21-member panel, said Thursday she wants to develop a system to meet as often as possible given the amount of work the panel faces. It is composed of representatives from each sector of post-secondary education, plus government, business, labor and student representatives.

The goal is ensuring “we’re all rowing in the same direction,” said Shapira, who is also chair of the State System of Higher Education board of governors.

The system oversees Pennsylvania’s 10 state-owned universities.

The board spent some of its first meeting introducing members, discussing the rules it will go by and the mechanics of creating performance indicators for the state-related universities. It also plans to hire an executive director.

Developing performance funding for the state-related universities has drawn much attention on those campuses, as leaders of each wants to know what indicators of student and institutional success will be rewarded.

“For years, we’ve challenged our state related institutions, along with all of our higher ed institutions, and said, ‘Why aren’t you keeping more students here in Pennsylvania after they graduate?’ Yet we’ve never actually put a structure in place to help them do that,” Shapiro said. “Nor have we ever incentivized them to do it.

“We’ve never incentivized our higher education institution leaders to help graduate more people in the fields that we need to be able to be more competitive as a commonwealth.”

The governor added, “Now, we’re doing that.”