Penn State Trustees Chair Tells Schuylkill Audience: Campus Closure Decisions Will Be Data-Driven*

Penn State University Board of Trustees Chair David Kleppinger told an audience of Schuylkill County business people and elected officials Thursday that the decision on which of the 20 Commonwealth campuses are picked for closure will be largely data-driven.

Kleppinger was the keynote speaker at the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce’s Business Executive Forum held at Penn State-Schuylkill.

During a Q-and-A with Chamber President and CEO Bob Carl, Kleppinger said the decision on which of the 20 Penn State University satellite campuses will close at the end of the 2026-27 term “will ultimately be data-driven.”

Late last month, Penn State University President Neeli Bendapudi said that some underperforming satellite campuses would have to close. Immediately after that announcement, fear grew locally that PSU-Schuylkill would be on that list, and a campaign began to tout its benefits to Schuylkill County.

Kleppinger said of the impending Commonwealth campus closures, “This is a long time coming. This is an issue that’s been kicked down the road at least 20 years. We now have a president that’s transformational. She’s willing to take on the difficult issues. This is a difficult issue but it’s necessary for the University to grow and thrive in the areas that it’s needed.”

Penn State said its biggest satellite campuses are safe from the chopping block. Schuylkill campus is not one of them but data, that Kleppinger said is most important in determining which stays open, is on its side.

Of the 12 campuses being considered for closure, it is one of only two that have seen increasing enrollment since 2021. It’s got the third-highest enrollment (698 in 2024) of the 12 campuses.

“We had to take a giant step back and ask the administration to have a data-driven process to analyze each campus and how each one is doing and what they mean to the community, which is highly important,” Kleppinger said of the role of he and his fellow Trustees. “It’s our duty as Trustees to ask the Administration to take a hard look at the 20-campus system that we have continues to serve the Commonwealth as we’d intended to and the students as we’d intended.”

If the decision were solely based on data, PSU-Schuylkill’s case looks rather solid. But Kleppinger admitted Thursday that in addition to data, he likes to take a subjective look at the impact campuses have on their community.

“You have to take a subjective application of objective data. That’s the approach that I, as chair of the board, will be taking when the recommendations ultimately come from this group,” Kleppinger said. “The data, itself, doesn’t tell the whole story about how important a campus is in the particular ecostructure that they operate. Those things have to be taken into account.”

Watch Kleppinger’s full response on campus closures:

^{Photo: Coal Region Canary}

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