University proposes to slash Collegian subsidy by more than half

Published by Barbara Stack on

The Daily Collegian needs your help.

Please click this link to quickly and easily send a letter to University President Neeli Bendapudi asking her not to cut the university’s support for our beloved Collegian by more than half.

In September, the Penn State Board of Trustees approved a fiscal year 2023 budget with a $149 million deficit. University President Neeli Bendapudi said then that in succeeding years the budget would contain smaller general fund deficits, with the hope that the budget will be balanced by 2025.

Not long after that, The Collegian learned that the university was proposing slashing its appropriation for the news outlet to $200,000 for 2024 from $475,000 for 2023. This was shocking since most cuts were no more than 15 percent.

Both the Collegian Board of Directors and the Collegian AIG Board of Directors have written President Bendapudi asking her to restore a significant amount of funding for The Collegian. The AIG argued that The Collegian provides a public service as a news outlet for students, faculty, administrators and State College residents while at the same time providing valuable real-life work experience to students from both the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and the Smeal College of Business.

The AIG also has contacted Penn State Board of Trustees members, including former Collegian columnist Jay Paterno, to seek support. If you know a trustee personally, please contact that person and ask them to help restore a reasonable level of university funding for The Collegian. Here is a list of the trustees with contact information.

The Collegian AIG also is seeking meetings with President Bendapudi and Bellisario College Dean Marie Hardin.

Categories: BoardCollegian StudentsNews

Barbara Stack

I started my journalism career at The Daily Collegian, where I covered cops, "radicals and minorities," and served as editorial page editor. After graduation, I worked as a reporter and feature writer for two community papers, The Tribune-Review and the Beaver County Times, before being hired by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I worked for the Post-Gazette for 27 years as a reporter, assistant city editor and editorial page writer. For a decade I covered issues regarding children and families, and a series of stories I wrote, along with a court case I persuaded the Post-Gazette to pursue, led to an order opening to the press and public dependency hearings in Pennsylvania juvenile court. In 2007, I began working as a blog writer for the United Steelworkers Union, composing blogs and op-eds that were published in the name of the union's international president. I am now retired and working as a consultant for The Pittsburgh Foundation's communications department.

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