Students and parents may require a road map to navigate Pennsylvania’s diverse and often complex higher education landscape.
When high school seniors begin searching for the best school to fit their higher education goals, they may need a road map, tour guide and interpreter to help them sort through Pennsylvania’s higher education universe.
For sure there are seemingly endless choices — public, private, large, small, urban and rural.
The Keystone State boasts nearly 200 public and private institutions of higher learning. The similarity with the higher education landscape in other states seems to end with those characteristics however, as even education leaders in the state confess it can be confusing.
“I once had to explain it to a delegation from Mongolia,” says Ron Cowell, president of the Harrisburg, Pa.-based Education Policy and Leadership Center, who also served in the state legislature for 24 years. “Even when you speak the same language, it’s hard to explain.”
Penn State University, for example, is not a state university nor is it legally affiliated with the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, the unified network of 14 state-owned universities fully funded and run by the state. The University of Pennsylvania is believed to be the only private school in the nation to carry the flag of “the university,” a reference commonly held by a state’s flagship public university.
To add to the confusion, for example, California University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University of Pennsylvania — both members of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education — are located in California, Pa., and Indiana, Pa., respectively.The state’s 14 community colleges and their network of campuses are an independent confederation of schools with minimal state coordination or oversight. The Pennsylvania Commission on Community Colleges is a nonprofit association of college presidents.Each president is free to lobby the legislature for funds for their respective school.
