Jonathan Peri, Ph.D., J.D. Michael H. Mittelman, OD, MPH, MBA President President 700 Fox Chase Road 8360 Old York Rd Jenkintown, PA 19046 Elkins Park, PA 19027 215-885-2360 x 1201 215-780-1280 [email protected] [email protected]
Ajay Nair, Ph.D. President 450 S. Easton Rd Glenside, PA 19038 215-572-2909 [email protected]
January 29, 2021
Congresswoman Madeleine Dean 115 E Glenside Ave, Suite 1 Glenside, PA 19038
RE: CARES Act III - The American Rescue Plan
Dear Congresswoman Dean,
Thank you for your work on the first two major COVID relief packages, both of which provided assistance to independent nonprofit institutions like Arcadia University, Manor College, and Salus University. We are grateful for this assistance and for your work on behalf of our institutions and our communities.
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We also know that you understand that there remains a tremendous amount of unmet need in higher education and in our institutions in particular. We write to you today to ask that you continue your work on behalf of higher education in this next phase of COVID relief (CARES Act III - The America Rescue Plan) and ensure that Pennsylvania’s 93 independent nonprofit schools are included in the relief efforts.
Although Congress appropriated about $14 Billion in the CARES Act and $23 Billion in CRRSAA for higher education, the American Council for Education has conservatively estimated that losses totaled over $120 Billion (through October) for all higher education sectors. In Pennsylvania, the two COVID relief bills covered just over 30% of our losses through October. You know well the storyline on independent nonprofit education in Pennsylvania. Our brother and sister institutions have been embedded on average for 135 years--embedded economically, socially, culturally, philanthropically--in 60+ local communities throughout the Commonwealth. They are the anchors for 195,000 jobs, they contribute $24B to Pennsylvania’s GNP every year (twice that if you include our associated healthcare facilities), they pay $1.1 billion in state and local taxes and provide over five million hours of volunteer service in all 67 counties.
Arcadia University, Salus University, and Manor College are similar in that we are all within a sector of higher education that has low to no margin. For Manor, the reduction in residence life has had a negative mid-six-figure impact. Manor’s Dental Hygiene Program and Expanded Functions Dental Assisting Program, while very prestigious, are very costly to operate without a pandemic. Taken together with the costs of operating our public-serving Dental Health Clinic, the pandemic is creating pressures on top of pressures. Even with these pressures, Manor College remains the best priced private undergraduate institution in Pennsylvania! Our students generally graduate with about half the debt of the average American undergraduate student.
Likewise, Salus’ clinics lose approximately $1.5 million annually, which covers the cost of care to those who cannot pay for it, in addition to our educational mission. Salus relies on income from those clinics to help offset the significant costs associated with their operations. Even with those losses, Salus has managed to keep its tuition relatively flat over the past 3 years with a substantial portion of those dollars dedicated to scholarships for our students. Even with that, Salus’ 4-year doctoral students leave Salus with an average debt load of almost $200,000. Most of these loans are relatively high-interest Federal loans.
For Arcadia, our values- and health-centered response in the closing campus for health and safety in March 2020 allowed us to continue to provide accommodations to a group of housing-insecure students, who were isolated on campus. Arcadia swiftly mobilized a mass-scale return home of hundreds of students studying abroad as international locations went into lockdown. The urgency and impact of the COVID crisis have heightened our budget situation with the shutdown of the global education market and the closure of our robust Glenside residential program. We have awarded funding from the CARES Act directly to more than 700 graduate and undergraduate students as grants to help with food and housing security and provided additional resources that allowed for students to continue their studies.
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It is essential to understand the demographics of our student populations. In Pennsylvania, independent nonprofit colleges educate ✓ 51% of all students pursuing four-year degrees ✓ 53% of all students of color in four-year institutions ✓ 49% of the working-age adult students ✓ 44% of all low-income (Pell and PHEAA) students.
Likewise, Manor College’s student population is comprised of 60.5% ethnic and racial minorities, 60-65% are the first generation to go to college, and 80-85% are working while in college. 94% of our students receive student aid. Salus University’s graduate student population is comprised of 39% ethnic and racial minorities and 91% of Salus’ students receive student financial aid. More than 30% of Arcadia University’s undergraduate student population are first- generation college students, and 99% of full-time undergraduates receive need- or merit-based financial aid.
As a graduate-level only institution, Salus students are not eligible for Pell Grants or undergraduate student loans, yet graduate students hold over 50% of the nation’s student loan debt. Additionally, the health professions currently do not reflect the same level of diversity that is enjoyed in our sister undergraduate institutions. We ask that you make Pell Grants accessible to graduate students to help increase opportunities among Black, Hispanic, and other underserved students wanting to pursue graduate-level professions, such as those in the health sciences.
The success of our most vulnerable students is possible because our schools keep net tuition (what families actually pay) below the level of most of our publicly funded institutions. In Pennsylvania, the net tuition of AICUP schools today is under $13,000, less than it was seven years ago. That is lower than our state-related institutions and not that much higher than state system schools (even though those institutions receive almost $1.3 billion in direct state subsidies each year.)
This success also derives from the work independent nonprofit schools do to graduate our students, to graduate them on time, to graduate them with manageable debt loads and to graduate them into jobs that help them fulfill their loan obligations. The independent nonprofit schools in Pennsylvania give--by far--the most grant aid (double federal/state grants combined). They also have recorded the highest completion rates (of any higher education sector), the highest on-time graduation rates (cuts debt) and the lowest default rates—literally going back decades. (All data from U.S. Department of Education, IPEDs.)
As you have worked so effectively the first ten months of this pandemic, we ask that you continue that hard work, to ensure that all higher education sectors are fairly represented in any COVID Relief package. We all understand that the federal government is not going to be able to fill all of the financial gaps that are left in the wake of this pandemic. We just want to be sure that we, and especially our students, are not comparatively disadvantaged in any relief package, so that we can continue to ✓ serve the 51% of Pennsylvania’s students in our schools, ✓ protect the jobs of all those who depend on us, and ✓ maintain our effective monetary, cultural and philanthropic contributions to the communities in which we thrive.
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Again, we are grateful for your leadership and all of your constructive help to this point in this national tragedy. And we wish you success as you confront the multiple challenges that confront our nation.
Very truly yours,
Jonathan Peri, Ph.D., J.D. Michael H. Mittelman, OD, MPH, MBA PRESIDENT, MANOR COLLEGE PRESIDENT, SALUS UNIVERSITY
Ajay Nair, Ph.D. PRESIDENT, ARCADIA UNIVERSITY
cc: Dr. Thomas P. Foley President, Association of Independent Colleges & Universities of Pennsylvania 101 North Front Street Harrisburg, PA 17101-1404
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