The 30 pieces of silver have already changed hands. Pilate has washed his palms, pretending neutrality. And the die has been cast.
That’s what it feels like as a Pennsylvanian watching Penn State turn its back on the very communities that built it, funded it and depended on it. I’m not here to beg. I’m here to speak plainly: If Penn State closes its branch campuses, it is betraying the people of Pennsylvania.
I attended Penn State New Kensington from 2001 to 2008. I came in as a provisional student with a 1.14 GPA out of high school, the fifth of six kids raised in public housing by a single mother. I worked full time, earned grades that placed me in the top 1% of Penn State students and got into medical school — without even having a bachelor’s degree. I’m now a practicing physician at one of Ohio’s top hospitals.
That transformation wasn’t some charity. It was the result of public investment, local grit and the access provided by Penn State New Kensington. Without it, I’d still be a janitor. Or driving a school bus. Or worse.
The branch campuses don’t just educate — they save lives. They offer a future to the overlooked, the underestimated and the working-class Pennsylvanians.
And if Penn State chooses to go forward with these closures, let me be absolutely clear: It will be doing to the people of Pennsylvania what Jerry Sandusky did to those children. That abuse happened on the watch of the main campus. And now, once again, the institution is violating the trust of the people who believed in it most.
You might think my story is an exception. It’s not. It’s exactly what Penn State New Kensington — and every other branch campus — was meant to do. They weren’t created for prestige. They were built to serve Pennsylvanians.
These campuses are embedded in Appalachian towns and Rust Belt cities. They’re in places where opportunity doesn’t just knock — it needs to be airlifted in. And that’s what the branch system did. Quietly. Effectively. Without fanfare. Without legacy admissions or ivy-draped buildings.
Shutting them down is an admission Penn State no longer wants to be a land-grant university. It wants to be a brand, a football team, a PR machine. But let’s be honest — when the real scandal hit, the betrayal of children by a predator protected by silence, that didn’t happen in a branch campus parking lot. It happened in the heart of the very system now claiming to know what’s best for us.
So don’t tell me this is about “enrollment” or “sustainability.” You don’t cut lifelines to struggling communities while inflating administrative salaries and recruiting out-of-state students like a for-profit diploma mill.
And don’t tell me this is about “strategic realignment.” We see exactly what it is: abandonment.
Let’s not pretend this wasn’t decided long ago. The 30 pieces of silver have already been accepted. Pilate has already washed his hands. The die has already been cast. But that doesn’t mean we go quietly.
Penn State was never meant to be an elite gated community for out-of-state tuition dollars and corporate interests. It was built for people like my mother, who raised six kids alone in a housing project. It was built for people like me, who graduated high school with a 1.14 GPA but clawed their way into medical school because a local campus existed just over the hill. It was built for the families still living in New Kensington, Johnstown, DuBois, Altoona, Mont Alto — people who don’t need a “global research hub.” They need a chance.
You’re not trimming fat. You’re severing lifelines. And you’re doing it while standing on the shoulders of the very Pennsylvanians who funded this university and bled blue and white when the brand was toxic.
Where are the public leaders now? The governor? The state senators? The representatives? The mayors of these forgotten towns?
Oh, right — they’ve washed their hands too.
If you go through with this, let history show: You didn’t just close campuses. You closed doors. You locked out futures. You abandoned the mission.
And in doing so, you did to the working people of Pennsylvania what Jerry Sandusky did to its children.
It didn’t happen in a back alley. It happened right here — on your watch. At main campus. In the boardroom. Behind closed doors.
But this time, we won’t stay silent.
Because we are not Penn State. We are Pennsylvanians.
Dr. William Dailey is a New Kensington native and graduate of Burrell High School.