News / Education
The Pennsylvania Association of State Colleges and Universities is Reaching Out to Students and Parents of Clarion University to Sign Up for Our Newsletter
Our mission at the Pennsylvania Association of State Colleges and Universities is simple. We are trying to ensure that the statutory purpose of public higher education in Pennsylvania as specified by Act 188 of 1982, the high quality education at the lowest possible cost to students, is both preserved and faithfully delivered for this generation and generations after. We are working to spread our message by reaching out to students so that they will sign up for the PASCU newsletter and learn more about how we are trying to help bring the highest quality education at the lowest possible cost to them.
It is our job to preserve and deliver the statutory purpose of public higher education in Pennsylvania and we are reaching out to students, parents, alumni and donors of Clarion University to sign up for the PASCU newsletter. Through education and advocacy we hope to launch and maintain a tireless and effective education campaign to inform PASSHE students, parents, alumni, donors, as well as the general public about the changes that have occurred to public higher education since the creation of the PASSHE system of universities by Act 188 of 1982.
Since the mid-19th century, public higher education in Pennsylvania has seen a lot of drastic changes. The most drastic change has been the steady erosion of the Commonwealth’s share of its funding over the last three decades, as an even-larger share of the total educational cost has been shifted onto PASSHE students and their families, private donors and primarily alumni. Between 1983 and 2013, the State share of PASSHE university operating budgets fell from 63% to 25%, State appropriation fell by 50% while at the same time, tuition rate quadrupled and the number of students attending PASSHE universities grew by 58%.
As more Pennsylvania students seek the promise of public higher education, high quality education at the lowest possible cost to the students, the State continues to shift more and more of the cost to the students themselves. This negates the very concept of “public” in the term “public higher education in Pennsylvania”.
This is why we are reaching out to the students, parents, donors, and alumni of Clarion University as well as the general public and asking them to sign up for the PASCU newsletter. We encourage PASCU’s key constituencies, namely the students, parents, donors and alumni of PASSHE universities, to make local and statewide elected officials and candidates for office aware that they support the mission, goals and objectives of PASCU and that they ask their elected officials and candidates in public office to do the same.
