Some Republican lawmakers are pushing back on Penn State’s plan to close campuses. Could that jeopardize its state funding?

Republican State Sen. Pat Stefano said he made one thing very clear to Pennsylvania State University administrators on a phone call this week: “You turn your back on my community. Now I turn my back on you.”

Stefano, whose district includes Penn State’s Fayette campus, one of seven Commonwealth campuses recommended for closure, said he would “have a hard time saying yes” to funding for Penn State if it goes through with the plan. The Fayette campus is the only two- and four-year college in the county, he said.

» READ MORE: PSU board approves closure of seven Commonwealth campuses by a 25-8 vote

Other lawmakers whose districts are home to targeted campuses also have expressed concern, meaning that Penn State may face a harder time getting approval for state funding this year. Funding for Penn State and other state-related universities requires a two-thirds majority vote by the House and the Senate.

Penn State trustees are scheduled to vote Thursday during a Zoom meeting, followed by an address to the campus community by president Neeli Bendapudi.

» READ MORE: Penn State considered 12 campuses to close. Here’s what they examined in choosing 7 to shut down.

The other campuses on the closure list are Wilkes-Barre, York, Shenango, Mont Alto, DuBois, and New Kensington. The move follows large enrollment declines at the campuses since 2010 and financial struggles amid an increasingly competitive higher education landscape, where closures and mergers of private schools and in the state university system have occurred.

The Penn State Faculty Alliance delivered a petition with more than 500 signatures to the university administration Wednesday opposing the move.

“This petition is necessary to have our collective voices heard by both the administration and the Board of Trustees because this administration has not meaningfully engaged Commonwealth campus faculty in the decision to close campuses,” said Rebecca Sarver, assistant teaching professor of criminal justice on the Wilkes-Barre campus.

Several trustees on the 36-member board have spoken against the plan, meaning a split vote is likely. How split is unclear. If the plan passes, it could just shift the battle to another stage.

» READ MORE: Penn State administration is proposing to close seven Commonwealth campuses

Gov. Josh Shapiro has not weighed in, but the plan will be subject to approval by his acting education secretary, Carrie Rowe. And then there is Penn State’s forthcoming budget request.

Several rural Republicans who represent the areas where satellite campuses are on the chopping block said they are hesitant to support Penn State’s funding — and its requested funding increase for 2025-26 of $30 million, or 11% — if Penn State closes the campuses in what they say was a rushed and shortsighted decision that excluded lawmakers’ input.

Several of the GOP lawmakers who are on track to lose Penn State campuses in their districts said the speedy closures do not take into account a number of factors, including the role the schools play in the local economy or ways they could have been reimagined before closure.

In DuBois, the region is recognized globally as the “Powder Metals Capital of the World” for its powdered metal manufacturing, which should have been considered, one representative said. For Penn State Mont Alto, which was founded in 1903 as one of the nation’s first forestry schools, lawmakers worry those critical programs that support Pennsylvania’s top industries will disappear from the curriculum.

» READ MORE: Penn State details its rationale for campus closures in 143-page report

“It’s such a shortsighted decision to close [Mont Alto], and to conduct a three-month study to determine whether or not an institution has any value is unconscionable,” said Rep. Chad Reichard, a Republican whose district includes the Mont Alto campus. “If Penn State doesn’t see the value in investing in our local economy, I will struggle in investing in Penn State.”

In its 143-page report with recommendations for campus closures, administrators recommended the forestry program be maintained and moved to another campus.

But not every conservative believes the closures are bad, as Pennsylvania’s higher education landscape has outgrown the student population.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana), whose district includes Penn State’s New Kensington campus, said he dislikes that he is on track to lose a campus but understands these changes are necessary to support the declining demographics in Pennsylvania.

He emphasized that Penn State has an obligation to ensure that the campuses are repurposed and “brought to a higher and better use in the communities they reside.” State lawmakers have an obligation to support that effort, too, he said.

“We cannot allow the campuses, if they are closed, to become blighted properties,” Pittman added.

While some GOP senators affected by the closures are hesitant to support Penn State in forthcoming state budget votes, Pittman said he believes other members will recognize, as he does, that Penn State is trying to reduce its spending and respond to declining college demographics.

But members in the House GOP may not see it the same way and could jeopardize Penn State’s state funding this year. For the last several years, House Republicans have threatened to withhold more than $600 million in combined state dollars for three of the state’s four state-related universities: the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, and Temple University.

GOP lawmakers in the state House successfully held up state funding over a number of personal, ideological, and institutional issues that individual members had with the schools until late fall in 2023, eventually requiring the schools to agree to limited increases in public records access. The universities are also transitioning to a performance-based system for future funding increases, a priority for some members of the House GOP who want more accountability from the schools.

Even though Republicans in the state House are narrowly in the minority, they still have major control in funding state-related universities, given the two-thirds majority vote required for approval.

Rep. Jamie Walsh, a Republican whose district includes the Wilkes-Barre campus, said Penn State’s 2 Plus 2 program — in which students spend their first two years in their home community before going to the main campus in State College — has benefited the community, and losing the campus would be “a heartbreaker.”

“I will be taking a strong stand, if they decide to close their campuses, regarding their funding,” Walsh added.

Rep. Mike Armanini, a Republican whose district includes DuBois, said he always supported Penn State funding when his GOP colleagues did not because of the role the college played in his community. This year, he’s not so sure.

“I’m gonna look at it very differently,” Armanini said. “By taking this step, they’re going away from their root mission that was first established. It’s very disheartening.”

This is the latest example of a major institution abandoning rural Pennsylvania, Armanini added, noting that it can take up to an hour to get an ambulance or more than an hour to get to the closest hospital with a labor and delivery department.

State Sen. Lisa Baker, a Republican whose district includes the Wilkes-Barre campus, earlier this month said she and a colleague would introduce a bill requiring public hearings prior to closing state-related universities.

“The Wilkes-Barre campus is a cornerstone for our region — economically, academically and civically,“ Baker and State Rep. Brenda Pugh, also a Republican from that area, said in a statement. “Before any decision is made, there must be a full, transparent process.”

Penn State administrators said the campuses were picked for closure based on a holistic look at various factors, including enrollment declines, population projections, housing occupancy, student performance, other colleges in proximity, finances, and maintenance backlog.

A comparison of the 12 campuses shows:

Six of the seven recommended for closure do not offer housing. The seventh, Mont Alto, has it, but showed the lowest occupancy rate, 40%, of campuses with housing.

York, which has the largest enrollment of the 12 at 703, is slated for closure, yet Allegheny, which has the third-smallest enrollment, is not.

Six of the seven with the biggest overall declines in enrollment were slated for closure. Mont Alto, with the third-smallest decline, is on the list.

Five of the seven with the smallest share of students eligible for Pell Grants, reserved for students from lower-income families, were selected for closure. And five of the seven selected for closure also had the lowest percentages of students from underrepresented groups. The university noted in its report the importance of maintaining access to students from diverse backgrounds.

Allegheny, which is recommended to remain open, “fulfills an essential role in providing access to higher education,” the report said, noting about half of its students are the first in their families to attend college, nearly 42% receive Pell grants, and nearly 30% are from underrepresented groups.

Hazleton, which also is recommended to remain open, serves the highest percentage of students from underrepresented groups of all Commonwealth campuses.

The three schools with the highest six-year graduation rates were slated for closure. They are Wilkes-Barre, which graduates nearly 70% of students in six years, DuBois, and York.

But university administrators said the Wilkes-Barre campus lies between two other larger and “more robust” campuses, Scranton and Hazleton. The Wilkes-Barre campus also has “no compelling academic niche or distinctive program portfolio,” the report said.

Of the Fayette campus, Penn State administrators cited in their report “regional population loss, economic distress, and limited demand for in-person education” and said its “programmatic offerings are largely replicable at nearby campuses or online through Penn State World Campus.”

Stefano said he sent “reams” of material to Penn State in support of the Fayette campus, underscoring its importance to the community. He said he will continue to call trustees and lobby against the closure.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “we will not go down quietly.”