The Best Interests of PASSHE’s
Students vs. those of PASSHE’s Elected and Appointed Officials
Our last blog post cited two examples, under the above heading, in which the best interests of PASSHE students and PASSHE’s officials were shown: 1) to be very different; and 2) to be decided in favor of the interests of the officials rather than the students. In this blog post, we will show by means of Example 3 below, that the “Officials win-Students lose” outcome seen in the first two examples is in no way an anomaly but is in fact part of a rigid, ongoing pattern that isn’t coincidental—because it never changes.
Recall that since 2002 the best interests of PASSHE students have been largely ignored by the PASSHE Board of Governors (BOG) and PASSHE’s fourteen Councils of Trustees (COTs). Those student interests were safely ignored because, under PASSHE’s current governance model, they could be—and easily so.
And that is because at the tables where PASSHE’s fifteen governance boards meet to discuss policy and make all key decisions affecting PASSHE’s majority financial stakeholders (the students, parents and alumni donors), not one of those 174 members was selected by those majority financial stakeholders!
None of the 174 members was put there to speak up for, much less vote in favor of, the best interests of PASSHE students. When PASSHE governance board members speak in favor of motions at public meetings that help elected officials but hurt PASSHE students, they needn’t fear any negative consequences from the students; that’s because the students have no role whatsoever in either the initial appointment of PASSHE governance board members, nor in the reappointment discussions when board member terms expire.
It is interesting to note and easy to confirm that many PASSHE governance board members end up getting reappointed over and over as their terms expire, so much so that terms of office as long as twenty years or more are not at all uncommon. But when one considers that so many of the decisions made by PASSHE’s fifteen governance boards are in the best interests of elected officials rather than PASSHE students, it is clear that at least some if not all of the individuals getting reappointed again and again must be pleasing the elected officials who first appointed them, as well as pleasing those who subsequently reappointed them.
It is also important to remember that the fourteen PASSHE universities are already 75% private, financially speaking! I say that because $1.2 billion (75%) of PASSHE’s $1.6 billion annual operating revenue comes from the private checkbooks of PASSHE’s majority financial stakeholders—students, parents and alumni donors. The remaining $400 million (25%) comes to PASSHE from the State in the form of ‘appropriation,’ i.e., ‘public’ funds deposited in the State treasury by Pennsylvania citizens in the form of taxes and fees.
Recall also that the fourteen PASSHE universities emerged as part of a 19th century phenomenon in America known as “public higher education,” a term which then meant higher education for qualified citizens that was either totally—or primarily—funded by “public,” i.e., State-appropriated funds which, in turn, came from every taxpayer in the State, whether or not every taxpayer could benefit directly from it.
Original “public higher education” was like the original (and still) “public education,” i.e., K-12 schools which are “free” to students who attend, but are funded by all taxpayers, even those without children.
The fourteen PASSHE universities are no longer “public” under the 19th century definition of that term. They are no longer funded “primarily,” much less “totally, by State appropriation. They receive minority (25%) funding from the State and majority (75%) funding from students, parents and alumni donors.
Universities that are 75% private and 25% public, financially speaking, should be functioning more like the private universities of the present than the public universities of the past. More on this topic later.
That is not to say there should be no State role in the governance of the fourteen PASSHE universities; but rather, it is to say that it should be a minority role, approximating the State’s minority (25%) funding role.
Example 3: Elected and Appointed State
Officials Compete Directly Against PASSHE Students
The evidence for this sad assertion is seen in the totally different ways in which citizens get appointed as governance board members (or trustees) at private universities, and at PASSHE’s 75% private “public” universities. (The quotation marks in the previous sentence are necessary because the fourteen PASSHE universities, which are already 75% private financially speaking, are now clearly “public” in name only.)
To get appointed to the governance board of a private university, it is generally necessary for the candidate be seen as a significant donor to the university, often by donating to support scholarships for university students, or to fund buildings or other critical university needs.
To be appointed to one of PASSHE’s fifteen governance boards, it is generally necessary that the candidate be seen, not as a significant donor to the PASSHE universities—for the benefit of the universities or the students—but rather as a significant donor to the political campaigns of the politicians in a position to decide or influence the candidate’s appointment/reappointment to a given PASSHE governance board.
It is in that sense that the State’s elected and appointed officials compete directly against the PASSHE students they are ostensibly called upon to serve in their roles on PASSHE’s fifteen governance boards.
To be continued.
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