Penn State president warns of staff layoffs
Corbett's plan would cut aid by $182 million.
Pennsylvania State University president Graham B. Spanier is warning of layoffs if proposed state education cuts are enacted.
"In this coming round of budget cuts, layoffs will be necessary because a cut of this magnitude is impossible to shoulder while retaining all of the employees on the payroll," Spanier wrote to university staff in a letter posted on the school's website late last week.
The College of Agriculture alone is expected to lose 440 jobs, more than one-third of its staff, a university spokesman said.
Gov. Corbett has proposed slashing education funding to help close the state's $4 billion budget gap, which he plans to do without raising taxes. Spanier said the $182 million cut to Penn State would likely mean tuition hikes for state residents, whose costs the state subsidizes.
Penn State, which has an enrollment of 96,000, is also considering closing some of its 24 campuses, though it has no immediate plans to do so.
"All campuses are currently viable, but this proposal brings into question the current model," Spanier wrote.
Student leaders from Pennsylvania's four state-related universities - Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple, and Lincoln - have launched campus campaigns to try to build student opposition to the cuts.
On Wednesday, nearly 1,000 people marched on Broad Street to protest the proposed cuts.
Funding cuts are nothing new to Penn State administrators. During the last decade, as funding decreased and enrollment rose, the university imposed a series of tuition hikes.
"More upward pressure was placed on tuition," Spanier wrote. "Our state appropriation now covers about 18 percent of our instructional budget, compared with 62 percent in 1971."