Nick Jacobs| The Daily American

For the past four plus years, I have had the honor, the challenge, and the responsibility of serving as a trustee for a small, specialized, health sciences university in California. Why California? My involvement there has been both serendipitous and, from a business and volunteer perspective, very understandable.

While working in California with the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine and Cedars Sinai Medical Center, I recognized that the philosophy of this university coincided with my own. They were teaching the best of western medicine and high genomic science combined with the most effective practices found in world medicine. That covers the business and volunteer perspective.

More unexpectedly, however, there also turned out to be a Western Pennsylvania and specifically a Somerset County connection with the current leadership at the university. The president had an aunt, uncle, and cousin from Somerset, all of whom had been friends of mine decades ago.

In my capacity as a trustee and member of the executive committee, Ive been watching and reading with interest about declining national college enrollments and rising tuition and housing costs, specifically in Pennsylvania. Then, of course, came COVID and all the pandemic-related challenges that all universities have endured these past 15 plus months. One of my alma maters went from about 15,000 to fewer than 7,000 students in the past several years.

In an article titled, A Seismic Shift in Higher Ed by Bill OToole in the Pittsburgh Quarterly, the challenges of this perfect storm were explicitly delineated as he provided the details about the shortfalls coming from the numerous variables, both seen and unforeseen.

According to this quotation in OTooles piece by Drew Wilson, director of media relations at Carlow University, The number of traditional college age students in Pennsylvania has been declining for several years now. There is a dramatic reduction in the number of high school students coming in 2025. So much so that it is referred to as the cliff in higher education circles. The cliff was going to affect higher education whether or not the pandemic occurred.

Having been a more-than-part-time resident of Pittsburgh for the past decade and an observer of the campuses of the numerous universities located within a few miles of our Pittsburgh residence, there was another obvious disruption that was not only foreseeable but also potentially predictably devastating. When the previous administration began imposing severe immigration restrictions, there was a precipitous decline in the number of international students visible on the various campuses.

Not unlike the Amish who pay cash for their healthcare, the majority of students from foreign countries pay full cost for their tuition. Also, according to OToole and Mike Hansen, director and chair of the Brown Center for Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, Essentially they are subsidizing the other students. This, along with the other challenges described above, will most assuredly impact the economy of several of our university towns for decades to come.

Then theres accumulated student debt. The primary reason this debt has become unbearable for many families is that our Pennsylvania legislators have endorsed a series of decisions that have resulted in Pennsylvania being ranked 46th of 50 states in university investments. The culmination of these decisions has resulted in an increased financial burden on the students and parents of those students interested in attending college in the state. This translates into an over 200 percent tuition increase since 2000.

Considering the United States, a land made up of immigrants from all over the world, has always succeeded because of the strength of our superior universities, our entrepreneurial spirit, and our ability to always come up with cutting-edge ideas and inventions, we are most assuredly at a precipice. Do we give up on ideas, infrastructure, education, and immigration? Do we continue to embrace division and misleading theories?

It seems like such a simple choice. Or not.

Nick Jacobs of Windber is a Senior Partner with Senior Management Resources and author of the bloghealinghospitals.com.

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Higher Education - Daily American Online