PASSHE’s Politically-Suffocating Embrace
PASSHE is an acronym for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, a public corporation created by passage of Act 188 of 1982. The fourteen PASSHE universities include Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester.
PASSHE is controlled by a Board of Governors (BOG) in Harrisburg with oversight of all fourteen PASSHE universities. Individual universities receive guidance from a local Council of Trustees (COT) at each campus. The 20 members of the BOG consist of 5 elected officials and 15 political appointees of elected officials. The COTs at each of the fourteen universities consist of eleven members, for a total of 154, all of whom are the political appointees of elected officials.
The Tyranny of the Funding/Governance
Imbalance
As noted previously, 100% of PASSHE’s 174 governance seats are controlled by elected officials through their political appointments to the BOG and fourteen COTs. This 100% political control of the fourteen PASSHE universities was reasonable in 1950 when the State was providing 90% of the cost of education, with tuition providing just 10%.
But it is totally unreasonable today when the State, in the person of its elected officials is providing only 25% of PASSHE’s annual revenue, making the State PASSHE’s minority financial stakeholder. The majority (75%) financial stakeholders today are the students, parents and alumni donors at the 14 universities—who control 0% of 174 seats.
The funding/governance imbalance is best seen in the disparity in the following two ratios: The funding/governance ratio for the State is (25%/100%); and the funding/governance ratio for the PASSHE Students it is (75%/0%).
That is, the State puts in 25% of the annual revenue yet controls 100% of PASSHE’s governance seats where all key decisions are made; while the students, parents and alumni donors put in 75% of revenue but control 0% of the governance seats—meaning they have no input into key decisions that affect them!
The Best Interests of PASSHE’s
Students vs. those of PASSHE’s Elected and Appointed Officials
But for the tyranny inherent in this funding/governance imbalance, the politically-suffocating embrace of the fourteen universities by PASSHE’s elected and appointed officials would not be possible. And that is because the suffocation occurs because so many key PASSHE BOG policy decisions end up benefitting the minority (25%) financial stakeholders (PASSHE’s elected and appointed officials), at the expense of the majority (75%) financial stakeholders (PASSHE’s students, parents and alumni donors). For confirmation of this sad but true assertion, consider the evidence provided in the following examples:
Example 1: The BOG Failure to
Follow the Mandate of Act 188
The plain language of Act 188¹ makes it clear that the purpose by law of the PASSHE system of fourteen universities is to provide “High quality education at the lowest possible cost to the students.” We have previously referred to this ‘statutory purpose’ as the ‘Pennsylvania Promise’ to PASSHE students. But the data show that since 2002, the BOG has allowed PASSHE’s quality gains of the previous nineteen years to be eroded—negating the first part of the Pennsylvania Promise—and has also failed to deliver a PASSHE education at anything like the lowest possible cost to the students—negating the second part as well.
Both failures stem from the same unfortunate PASSHE BOG policy decision: to focus on the “lowest possible tuition,” i.e., sticker price rather than on the “lowest possible cost to the students,” i.e., bottom line—as mandated by Act 188 in its statutory purpose for the PASSHE system of fourteen universities.
Politically speaking, being able to boast about keeping PASSHE tuition low is great PR for the Governor (regardless of party) because it creates the false impression that such a decision benefits the PASSHE students and their hardworking parents, who struggle to pay the tuition. The news release writes itself!
But in addition to being contrary to law, the PASSHE BOG’s “low tuition for all” policy devastates the 67% majority of PASSHE students who come from less affluent families by saddling them with crushing student loan debt, while providing students from more affluent families (33%) with unneeded State subsidies.
Example 2: Governance Board
Members have no Formal Obligation to PASSHE Students
Currently, the political supporters who get appointed by elected officials to seats on PASSHE’s Board of Governors (BOG) and PASSHE’s 14 Councils of Trustees (COTs) must take the following oath of office:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey and defend the constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity.”
Note that these 37 words constitute the entire oath² taken by PASSHE’s BOG and COT members.
Note also, that while the oath calls on the PASSHE governance board members to “discharge the duties of their office with fidelity,” the object of their fidelity is not specified!
According to Merriam-Webster, “fidelity implies strict and continuing faithfulness to an obligation, trust, or duty, such as, for example, marital fidelity.” That is, fidelity requires both a subject and an object.
Lacking an oath-mandated requirement as to whom the governance board members owe their fidelity, it would not be surprising if political supporters of elected officials who receive appointments to PASSHE’s governance boards chose, as the objects of their fidelity, the same elected officials who appointed them.
In fact there is convincing evidence that politically-appointed officials on the PASSHE Board of Governors and the 14 PASSHE Councils of Trustees discharge the duties of their office with fidelity to the elected officials who appointed them, apparently in the hope of being reappointed when their terms expire.
The current oath taken by PASSHE governance board members—which doesn’t explicitly require them to put the best interests of the students first—is incredibly damaging to the students because there is a huge difference between the best interests of the PASSHE students and those of the elected officials.
To be continued.
² https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/6750603/oath-of-office-pdf-37k.
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