Penn State University’s community- based branch campuses have served as academic outposts for thirty years, providing higher education and economic mobility throughout Pennsylvania. But today, with changes to demography and the economics of education, they are overbuilt and financially unsustainable. Closures, finally announced last week, were inevitable.

What was not inevitable was the level of uncertainty and anxiety PSU leadership has foisted on thousands of students and hundreds of faculty and staff, with their vague announcement that 12 of the university’s 19 “commonwealth campuses” are under threat.

The seven campuses that PSU President Neeli Bendapudi announced are safe from closure are those with the highest enrollments: Harrisburg, Behrend (Erie), Abington, Altoona, Berks, Brandywine and Lehigh Valley. Meanwhile, among the 12 campuses under threat of closing are all four southwestern campuses: Beaver, New Kensington, Fayette and Greater Allegheny in McKeesport. Whether they will close will be decided, apparently, at the end of the semester — leaving at least two months of uncertainty for the people most affected.

This slow-burn downsizing is worse for students and staff than decisive and firm action. The closures, inevitably painful to the affected communities, will only be more damaging after false hope and mixed messaging. This is similar to the process that turned Pittsburgh Publics Schools’ facility closures into a drawn-out mess.

”While it is clear that not all 12 campuses can continue, it is equally clear that a number of them will,” Ms. Bendapudi wrote in a statement. Her statement provides zero reassurance and zero guarantees for students and staff, and offers zero guidelines for what metrics will be used to decide which schools to close.

The only thing worse than closing a branch campus entirely and decisively is leaving faculty and students without answers, tasked with investing time and energy at schools where they may not even be able to finish their degrees — and who may not be able to continue at another school. While all branch campuses slated for closure will continue operating through the 2026-27 school year, Penn State is only promising to provide two years of undergrad education at those sites.

Students can (in theory) transfer to another Penn State branch or the main campus. But many branch campus students are also only attending because the local campuses are close and affordable. Transfer guarantees, without static tuition and compensation for travel, mean nothing to students who are already stretching financial resources and cannot easily commute across the state.

PSU should also work with the State System of Higher Education to make alternative arrangements, closer to home, for students who don’t want to move to State College. The SSHE should also seriously consider combining campuses to ensure that a large region, like southwestern Pennsylvania, has at least one branch campus.

While this downsizing is in response to undeniable demographic reality, this won’t make it any less painful. The commonwealth campuses exemplify the boost in economic mobility the state’s flagship university is meant to provide. Branch campus students are more likely to be Pennsylvanians, first-generation college students and low-income, especially when compared to those at the University Park campus.

For students in these demographics, the benefits of a college education are magnified — and so are the costs when the opportunity disappears.

Students and staff at these campuses are committed to PSU, and PSU has in turn made a commitment to them. That means not just offering spots at the University Park main campus, but offering the same tuition rates already agreed to, while covering travel costs.

These students, the staff and the faculty, and their families, deserve to know what will happen to their schools and that . Penn State will honor its commitments to them.

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via TNS