Across Pennsylvania, people are rightly questioning the Penn State board of trustees’ closure decision and considering how to reverse it. In addition to hampering the excellent work commonwealth campuses do making education a public good, the vote also contradicts prior assurances by President Neeli Bendapudi in 2022 that there’d be no mass layoffs or campus consolidations.

The board’s closure vote also marks a departure from Sarah Thorndike’s (Penn State’s senior vice president for finance and business/treasurer and chief financial officer) celebration of Penn State’s “adding $1 billion to our net assets this fiscal year,” a figure flagged in the report on page 2 and evidenced on page 17.

The board’s decision flies in the face of our elite Moody’s 2024 credit rating of AA1 and S&P’s AA (both the second highest). Moody’s forecast Penn State’s “strong national reputation and large footprint will continue to support favorable student demand, even as demographic and competitive pressures intensify.” S&P recognized our “steady strong enrollment,” and “high retention rates”; Moody’s lauded Penn State’s “scale and diversity of activity,” “excellent brand,” and in 2022, praised our “important social role as a key economic anchor.”

The university touted our increasing graduation across the Penn State system. Thus, the “demographic cliff” President Bendapudi repeats when promoting the closure plan is not an obstacle for continued financial stability. Our large scale is a strength.

Instead of parroting the administration’s narrative that Penn State would fall into a demographic abyss of despair lest we sever seven commonwealth campuses, readers should ask, “Why cut?” I hope you’ll also ask, “is the sky really falling?” Join those concluding this decision demands action, not surrender.