Outgoing Pa. state system chancellor Greenstein reflects on achievements and challenges

Months after becoming chancellor of Pennsylvania’s state-owned universities, Daniel Greenstein shared an ambitious goal for a system already underfunded and headed toward controversial campus mergers and spending cuts.

“In a transformed system — a sharing system — every student on every campus has access to the full breadth of academic programming at every other campus across the system,” Greenstein said as he was officially installed on Jan. 16, 2019.

Put another way, a student at Slippery Rock University or Pennsylvania Western University could enroll in any courses there, or remotely in any of the thousands of courses offered at the eight other State System of Higher Education universities. Collectively, they enroll 83,000 students.

Six years later, Greenstein is preparing to step down Oct. 11 with that goal not yet achieved.

But it won’t be much longer before the course system is up and running, he told TribLive in an interview Thursday.

“My expectation is by March 2025, we will have the infrastructure in place across the system,” he said. “It’s now two-thirds in place.”

In about 12 to 18 months, he said, the first cross-university offerings should be accessible using a new $27 million unified student information and registration system.

Inability to get courses needed for graduation has been an issue at a number of universities, including PennWest. In theory, the new system means a student in need of a specific course could look to up to nine other universities.

Greenstein, 64, informed the system’s board of governors in July that he was leaving to pursue “a compelling opportunity … to work nationally.” He did not elaborate then or on Thursday.

His six-year tenure has been characterized as transformative, both by his supporters and others with less favorable opinions. His years have been marked by no tuition increases, a historic boost in state support to the State System, but also a reduction of system universities from 14 to 10.

PennWest (California, Clarion and Edinboro) and Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania (Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, Mansfield) were created from those mergers in July 2022.

Greenstein took the job when campus closures or mergers were still rare. They have become regular occurrences of late, as higher education faces a shrinking 18-22 college-age market, worries about campus prices and debt, and a job market attractive to students right out of high school.

In Pennsylvania, awash with campuses vying for students, “We’re at ground zero,” Greenstein said.

Six consecutive yearly votes by the State System to freeze tuition means full-time Pennsylvania undergraduates pay $7,716 a year, the same as in 2018-19 when that rate was set. Tuition, fees, room, board, and expenses across the system have been held nearly flat for five years, Greenstein said.

Meanwhile, the State System under Greenstein has seen a 30% increase in state funding the last three years, including a 16% jump to $552.5 million in 2022, the largest one-year increase in the system’s 41 years. Support stands at $621 million, not counting a one-time $370 million investment by the state to support redesign.

System leaders attributed the increase to improved relations with state legislators by freezing tuition, having balanced budgets, and creating strategies for schools with low enrollments.

The State System achieved $300 million in savings though greater efficiency.

“I think the advantage we bought ourselves is that we stabilized ourselves,” Greenstein said.

Greenstein said he was not disappointed that a bid to overhaul higher education in Pennsylvania did not fully come to fruition this year.

In his proposed state budget in February, Gov. Josh Shapiro sought to combine the 10 State System universities and 15 community colleges under a new entity. Shapiro said the state’s higher education system was underfunded, overpriced and locked in unnecessary competition for limited tax dollars.

The governor’s proposal yielded a new coordinating body for those schools, but not a merger.

“I don’t see that there’s a missed opportunity,” Greenstein said.

He said what matters more is ensuring pathways for students to the job market such as “two-plus-two” programs, ease of transfer and credentialing.

“To the governor’s credit, his proposal … injected a full load of positive energy ” among two- and four-year schools.

Greenstein became the State System’s fifth chancellor on Sept. 4, 2018.

The system had begun a redesign effort two years earlier to deal with steep enrollment losses and severely stressed finances in a state with a shrinking 18- to 22-year-old market and public funding near last among the 50 states.

Enrollment had already fallen from a high of 120,000 in 2010 to 98,000 — an 18% drop.

He set out to boost state support and extract difficult financial savings.

The day Greenstein’s departure was announced, State System board chair Cynthia Shapira praised his efforts and said the system was better for his efforts.

That same day, Kenneth Mash, head of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, said his 5,000 members had mixed feelings about the chancellor’s tenure.

“He managed to secure more money from the commonwealth than any chancellor in my memory. He focused on affordability, which, you know, thousands of students benefited from,” Mash said. “He focused on university transparency and even participated directly in faculty negotiations, previously unheard of. Those are all positive things.”

But the mergers “really angered and upset faculty across the system,” Mash said.

In addition to Slippery Rock, PennWest and Commonwealth University, the State System includes Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Kutztown, Millersville , Shippensburg and West Chester universities.