Penn State Tuition Rises 104% In 10 Years

Penn State University pays its president, Graham Spanier, more than $1 million a year.

Facing tough economic times, Spanier has been whining about how the state (the Pennsylvania taxpayer) isn't sending enough money to Happy Valley.

Instead of dealing with the economic reality and finding ways to cut costs from the university's bloated $4 billion-a-year budget, Spanier keeps blaming Gov. Tom Corbett and the Legislature for reducing PSU's annual taxpayer allotment by about $70 million.

That meager reduction prompted Penn State to raise tuition by 5 percent.

For the amount of money Spanier is getting paid, he should be able to come up with ways to cut costs and reduce the burden on Pennsylvania families who want to send their children to Penn State.

From an editorial in The Harrisburg Patriot-News:

... tuition at Penn State is too high. It has gone up 104 percent in the last decade and its tuition rate is the highest for a four-year, public university in the nation — the University of Pittsburgh is No. 2 — according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Taking into account room and board plus books, the increase means it will cost more than $100,000 to get a four-year degree from Penn State. This from a school that has its humble beginnings as a land grant university. It has long been a place for a student who is the first in their family to go to college. That goal might be harder to achieve.

Read the full editorial, "Sharing the pain: Penn State must find ways to cut costs," at the newspaper's website.