Editorial: Cutting support to Daily Collegian shows Penn State doesn't value information

Every day, Penn State students hoping to go pro step onto the field of play, pick up the ball and run with it. They score big, and more than a few have gone on to win major awards as a member of amazing teams.

But the university’s board of trustees has decided to pull funding. It doesn’t matter what the track record is or how much the program has done for the school experience. By 2025, there will be no more money put into an activity that was a reason many students chose Penn State.

We all know that will never be what it sounds like. Penn State would never pull funding from the football program. Beaver Stadium has nothing to fear.

The team seeing the money pulled out from under it is the student newspaper, The Daily Collegian.

Published since 1887, it will receive just $200,000 in 2023-24 — less than half what it did last year.

And in 2024-25? It will get nothing.

That’s right. Penn State — a school that became synonymous with hiding the truth during the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and that has been criticized repeatedly for a lack of transparency in the years since — has cut all funding for a valuable program that had cost it just about 5% of the football coach’s salary.

Under President Neeli Bendapudi, who just finished her first year at the helm, Penn State has been taking steps to pull out of a budget deficit. Belt tightening and tough choices have followed. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s reality.

But pulling support for the student newspaper is not a smart financial decision. The university is teaching its journalism students — and prospective students — that it does not value a job it trains people to do.

The football program has about 100 student-­athletes. It’s one of the most consistently successful producers of NFL draftees, but in 2023, that meant six players were selected to play pro ball.

The Donald P. Bellisario School of Communications — named after a journalist turned producer and screenwriter — enrolled 2,831 students in 2021. They leave Penn State for outlets big and small, print, broadcast and digital.

For many of the football players, the decision to attend Penn State was made with dreams of running onto the Beaver Stadium field in front of a sold-out, white-out crowd.

Journalism students have a similar dream, of honing their skills at one of the best college newspapers in the country.

The Collegian leadership is adamant that it will continue its work, with advertising and donations supporting its mission.

The people who won’t be served are the other students. The university is teaching them an important lesson about the value of the news. It is emphasizing that, in the eyes of the state’s largest university, information is not important.

That’s a dangerous game to play for an organization selling education.