The state House agreed Tuesday to boost support of Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities in exchange for a tuition freeze in the 2024-25 academic year.
Penn State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Lincoln University will receive $640 million more from the state after months of legislative wrangling.
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The Pennsylvania House Freedom Caucus (PAFC) this week issued an ultimatum to the Pennsylvania State University: Either your hospitals will stop providing puberty blockers to children or funding won’t be forthcoming.
Penn State Health operates six hospitals in central Pennsylvania. The PAFC is castigating the university-run system for “prescribing experimental puberty blockers and providing “‘gender-affirming care’ to children as young as FIVE YEARS OLD.”
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Many of America’s top medical schools have implemented Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a part of their mandatory programs, according to the Critical Race Training in Education database.
Approximately 58 of the top 100 medical schools ranked by the U.S. News & World report include CRT in their courses and student training, according to the Critical Race Training in Education database. Of the top schools, 46 provide students and staff with resources by Robin DiAngelo, the author of “Nice Racism,” a book about how progressive white people perpetuate racial harm, and Ibram X. Kendi, the author of several books on antiracism including “Stamped.”
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Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities are moving ahead with tuition increases in spite of Republican lawmakers’ exhortations that they freeze their prices.
Earlier this week, state Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) sent a letter to the administrators of Temple University, Lincoln University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University to urge them not to further economically burden students or their families as inflation rages. Soon thereafter, GOP leaders of the state House of Representatives sent their own message to the four schools which operate independently but rely heavily on state funding.
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State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) this week wrote to Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities to urge them to abandon their planned tuition increases and freeze in-state tuition in light of skyrocketing inflation.
The senator noted that the Keystone State’s Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget allots $600 million in total to Lincoln University, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University. Those institutions are also getting $40 million in new discretionary funding from Gov. Tom Wolf (D). With such generous state subsidies, Mastriano reasoned, partially public universities should make every effort to avoid putting new pressures on students and their families.
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As July begins, Pennsylvania enters into Fiscal Year 2022-23 without an FY 22-23 budget.
Republicans who control the General Assembly and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf have yet to agree on all facets of the spending plan. Altogether, the governor has proposed allotting $43.7 billion in taxpayer money in the next budget cycle, a figure that Republicans have said is too high.
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A major change in public records requirements for some of Pennsylvania’s best-known universities is working through the General Assembly.
Yet, while expansive, it would leave the public with less information about higher education than is available in other states.
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A bill to create a performance-based funding incentive for three public universities passed the Pennsylvania House Education Committee on Monday, with all 15 Republicans supportive and all 10 Democrats opposed.
Beginning in Fiscal Year 2023-24, the bill would apply to Pennsylvania State University, Temple University and the University of Pittsburgh, three of Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities. (The fourth, Lincoln University, is a historically black institution that relies primarily on commonwealth funding.)
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State Rep. Eric Nelson (R-Greensburg) on Wednesday announced a proposal to redirect $580 million previously allotted to three major Pennsylvania universities to a college voucher program.
Under the representative’s measure, students from households with up to $100,000 in annual earnings would receive yearly grants of as much as $8,000 per year for higher education. Those from households earning between $100,000 and $250,000 would get vouchers of $4,000. These payments would be managed via an expansion of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), an agency Nelson said has demonstrated an ability to efficiently oversee Pennsylvania students’ financial assistance.
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With midterm elections this year, Pennsylvania’s 2022 congressional re-districting plans are under scrutiny. The state lost one congressional district last year, bringing the total number down to 17.
The proposed map is not finalized, but FiveThirtyEight reports that three congressional districts will likely be “highly competitive seats.”
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The National Science Foundation (NSF) provided a $750,000 grant to Temple University researchers for developing a product that tracks local journalism cycles, which is part of their new “Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems” initiative.
The “America’s Fourth Estate at Risk: A System for Mapping the (Local) Journalism Life Cycle to Rebuild the Nation’s News Trust” project aims to create a data-based tool that informs journalists when publishing content might result in “negative unintended outcomes” like “the triggering of uncivil, polarizing discourse, audience misinterpretation, the production of misinformation, and the perpetuation of false narratives.”
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