I was at Penn State visiting once. I asked what the state funding was. They said 4% or so. I figured that’s not correct. Last year I dug into the university budget and the state’s funding level. It was actually a small fraction. A lot of money, but not 90% or so. When I was on campus I asked why, if the funding was so low, they call it “Penn State?” The dean told me it will always be called Penn State, regardless of the state funding level.

FWIW: I went to school in California, when it was nearly zero tuition. It can be done. While there, the Cal system had more Nobel Laureates than all of the USSR. Affordable education is possible, people just have to want it. In Texas, the U of T has so many gas and oil wells in West Texas they could make all education free. But you can bet that they don’t.

Historically, PSU has a 5% increase annually.

"it's part of the dorm experience!"

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No I'm sure PSP cost over a billion. They get tax dollars from other social programs I am sure. It sure seems that we pay an awful lot For bridge's to fall down.

It's not a crime, it's a policy and an long running one.

Article VIII § 11 (a) of the Constitution of Pennsylvania restricts, "proceeds from gasoline and other motor fuel excise taxes, motor vehicle registration fees and license taxes, operators' license fees and other excise taxes imposed on products used in motor transportation," to be, "used solely for construction, reconstruction, maintenance and repair of and safety on public highways and bridges and costs and expenses incident thereto." (Emphasis mine.)

Law enforcement patrols of highways seems easily construed as falling within the remit of the authorization to use motor vehicle revenues for, "safety on public highways," or even, "incident thereto." The practice has been in place for a long time. Governor Raymond P. Shafer's FY 1969 - 1970 Governor's Executive Budget refers expressly to this function such as on page 52 (actually page 60 of the file), where it states that the Motor License Fund, "finances State Police highway patrol operation."

Whether PSP highway safety operations cost half a billion dollars is another question and one that I imagine would be practically difficult to assess, much less implement a policy relative to. To some extent, recent administrations seem to have considered that it might not as the size of the transfer has been gradually reduced over the foregoing several years. Even if it is wholly eliminated that does not mean that difficult questions about the funds available PennDoT and the PSP will be avoided.

Indeed. Could insert any road in this lovely state and beyond and the title would be appropriate.

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Offset it with money made from sports

None of them should get state funding. Unless they suddenly opt to become state universities, all state funding should go to state system of higher education schools.

Last time I looked, I think the state provides funding in excess of $600 million to the “state-related” schools including Pitt and Penn State, Lincoln, and Temple, while funding for the 14 state schools like Slippery Rock and IUP is around $475 million.

As a faculty member of a university that is not on this list; cut the administrative positions and you’ll have the money you need. You certainly don’t pay us.

I don’t take the turnpike. Too damn expensive!

Do you know what happens if you are in charge of the little league financial i.e. bank account and you decide to give the security guard 500$? That's right you are charged with a crime. Somehow if the state does the same thing but gives it to the police it is 100% ok. I guess in all honesty we are luck the thin blue line did not take it all. After all they are all that keeps Americans safe and free.

The GOP and their base heavily disagree.

Probably more so since the fee is egregious

Cut CEOs

Don't give them shit. Let them dip into savings like everyone else.

Yeah, I drive across the state pretty frequently and have absolutely noticed the asshat meter goes off the chart the closer you get to the Philly areas of the turnpike.

At Penn State, the academic and athletic sides are separate. The athletic department is self sufficient and no tuition or academic money goes towards varsity sports. The majority of schools are not this way however.

I don’t understand why Colleges and Universities are so immune to the realities of business. A business that can not control its costs often finds itself out of business. A business that fails to offer good value for the product or service it provides often goes out of business. Yet these institutions and many others march on as if by Manifest Destiny.

How exactly does one take on the dnc/rnc where the real power lies in a "2 party system"?

Ridiculous

PennDoT's fiscal staff would certainly rather be rid of the transfer to the Pennsylvani State Police, which is a complaint that might conceivably have existed in some form since at least the fifties, but I mean to suggest that the transfer is not enough to account for the differential in tax rates.

The most recent Governor's Executive Budget shows that the Motor License Fund had revenues of $ 2.9 billion in fiscal year 2021-2022, (page 58) which the most recent year that actual revenues are available for, and that the Pennsylvania State Police received $ 0.5 billion from the Motor License Fund (page 565). So the State Police receive 17.7 % of Motor License Fund Revenues; that's a consequential amount, but I'm skeptical that it accounts for fuel taxes being so much higher than in neighboring states. (Governor Shapiro's budget calls for the PSP to receive only $ 400 million of Motor License Fund revenue for the coming fiscal year)

If the transfer were eliminated, it would need to be compensated for by some mixture of lowering PSP expenditures by more than a third, reducing other programs so that funding could be transferred to the PSP or introducing a new revenue source. It's not surprising that the General Assembly and Governor have neglected to make those choices for so long or that they should have relied upon a way to keep part of the PSP budget off the the General Fund's books.

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Yeah, film program, but I finished up just before everything got shipped to IP, so most of my classes were still in Carnegie. That would be crazy annoying; I didn't even realize they moved it back again. I remember my senior year they were talking about the change to IP and I was like "way to kill a top film program by completely divorcing it from campus." I sure never heard of any of my engineering/english/kinesiology friends needing to use the lab at 2am because that's the only time the Avid bays were available to book, but film kids? Sure, find a way to get 2 miles outside of campus after the busses stop running and you have no car. At least my class could hand carry all the gear rentals from Carnegie back to our apartments if we couldn't rustle up someone with a car.