President Neeli Bendapudi’s Discussion About Penn State’s Budget
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.-- Penn State President, Neeli Bendapudi, spoke with students of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications on Friday, April 7, in the Foster Auditorium about the current situation regarding Penn State’s finances.
“We have a big hole, a nine-figure deficit, it’s called a structural deficit… it means it’s not one time…month after month, year after year and it’s built-in: there’s no way to pay for it,” Bendapudi said.
To further explain the problem, she said that before her presidency none of the 12 Penn State colleges communicated with each other about their budget and where or how they were spending Penn State money.
Along with various budget problems within Penn State, Bendapudi added that all Pennsylvania public universities receive the same amount of money to support the school.
Penn State isn’t receiving enough money to properly support all students because of the large number of students enrolled, compared to Temple University or the University of Pittsburgh.
An easy solution, but one President Bendapudi refuses to make would be to raise students’ tuition, in her words: if Penn State were to raise tuition it would be “unsustainable”.
Bendapudi vocalized that progress is being made. Now, all the college’s deans and administrative leaders are discussing and comparing their budget model to make sure that the same dollar isn’t being spent in multiple places, this deficit may begin to minimize.
Additionally, she shared that there was “no budget model” to organize where each dollar went that was provided by the state, and “no one knew why one college got ‘x’, one college got ‘y.’ There were no rules about who got what,” Bendapudi said.
Bendapudi emphasized the danger of spending recklessly and without thoughtfully making decisions.
She focused on the idea of efficiently making decisions and left advice to the audience. She said, “Don’t ever be focused on just the problems of today, you need to be able to look at the promise of tomorrow… you cannot make irresponsible decisions today because you are cheating [the ones’ impacted] tomorrow.”
Prior to the press conference, students were advised to sign-up and submit questions for President Bendapudi to respond to regarding Penn State’s budget problems. Typically, journalists can prepare questions before the event but are trained to form questions as the press conference occurs.
Bendapudi opened up the conversation to the audience and asked for students’ advice for helping with the budget situation. Many students added their thoughts, made suggestions, and asked questions.
President Bendapudi wants the students to help solve the problem that will ultimately affect them. She said, “Please remember we say ‘We Are Penn State’... we are not a community that says ‘I Am’”.
Although the press conference focused on university budget issues, Bendapudi shared insights.
“When you have a strong sense of purpose, why you’re doing what you’re doing, but you’re then willing to be agile in how you respond to the environment, that is how you create opportunities and you leverage opportunities,” she said.
Bendapudi shared her purpose: student success and forming employable students. She explained that her experience as a leader is not always perfect, but she wants all leaders to remember to spend time with supportive people, and not with unsupportive people while attempting to change others’ minds.
President Neeli Bendapudi held an interactive press conference to be transparent about the imperfections with Penn State and advised all students to visit advocate.psu.edu and sign the petition to fund Penn State students.
Natalie Simone is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, email nvs5790@psu.edu.
