The Financial Aid comparison between a typical PASSHE university (California University) and All Institutions in America actually got worse after 2011, the last year of data included in Chart 20.¹
Between 2011 and 2013, the financial aid packages at All Institutions improved from 51% grants to 52% grants; and from 42% loans to 39% loans; while at the same time, the financial aid packages at California University deteriorated from 27% grants to 25% grants, and from 65% loans to 66% loans.
If PASSHE were to provide financial aid packages equal to just the average package across America, each PASSHE student would save $1,433 per semester, $2,866 per year, and $11,464 over four years! And that would only bring PASSHE students to the average financial aid package in America, which is nowhere near the financial aid packages needed to yield the “lowest possible cost to the students.”
PASSHE’s Failure to Obey the Law
(Act 188)
Both of the failures cited previously—the failure to provide high quality education, as well as the failure to provide it at the lowest possible cost to the students—stem from the singularly inexplicable failure of the PASSHE Board of Governors since 2002 to simply obey the law, Act 188,² as written.
In simple terms Act 188 says—when it comes to funding—that: 1) the Governor and the Legislature get to decide how much State support the Commonwealth can afford to provide to PASSHE in any given year; and 2) The Board of Governors then gets to decide how high the tuition rates must be set in order “To do and perform generally all of those things necessary and required to accomplish the role and objectives of the System,” as the BOG is legally required to do by Section 20-2006-A(a)(15) of Act 188.
And, presumably, accomplishing the Act 188 statutory purpose of the PASSHE universities: “To provide high quality education at the lowest possible cost to the students,” would be one of the first “things necessary and required to accomplish the role and objectives of the System.”
Although the Board of Governors has the legal authority, from Section 20-2006-A(a)(11) of Act 188, “To fix the levels of tuition fees,” and despite the fact that the law does not require or even mention any role for the Governor in the tuition-setting process, the Board of Governors has for the 20-year period between 1992 to 2012 anxiously awaited—together with the 14 PASSHE university presidents—the Governor’s word as to the maximum allowable tuition rate increase for that year!
Why would 20 different Boards of Governors with slightly varying membership defer every year for 20 years to five different governors, both Democrat and Republican—when it came to one of their most important sworn duties—to set tuition rates in such a way as to provide “high quality education at the lowest possible cost to the students?” Why would they let the Governor decide that issue politically, when Act 188 gives that responsibility not to the Governor, but to the Board of Governors?
While the reason must clearly be political—since it always involved the Governor—it is just as clearly not partisan—since it involved governors from both parties serving roughly equal time in office in the years between 1992 and 2012.
Divided
Loyalty/Conflict of Interest
When elected or appointed officials fail to perform sworn duties, it raises a question of divided loyalty, otherwise known as conflict of interest, which Merriam-Webster defines as “A conflict between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust.”
Earlier, we mentioned a 20-year history of Pennsylvania governors getting directly involved in the annual tuition-setting process for the PASSHE universities, and always with an insistence on the lowest possible tuition, even though the law calls instead for the lowest possible cost to the students, a very different thing. A specific source of suspicion is that a governor’s preference for lowest possible tuition rates may have more to do with private political interests than his official duties as a member of the PASSHE Board of Governors—the dictionary definition of a conflict of interest.
Act 188 does not call for the lowest possible PASSHE tuition, i.e., sticker price. It calls for the lowest possible cost to the students, i.e., bottom line. The practice by governors, and compliant BOG members, to focus on the lowest possible sticker price instead of the lowest possible bottom line suggests either that they haven’t read the law, which is very unlikely, or that governors may have a private interest in keeping the PASSHE sticker price as low as possible.
There
are at least three potential private interests for every governor, regardless
of party, for artificially holding down PASSHE tuition rates.
To be
continued.² https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/6772880/act188-pdf-405k.
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