comment by Borough resident Mark Rimple, 3/16/11, to the article “Corbett’s budget secretary goes after PA colleges” by Scott Detrow at WITF, 3/15/11:

Clearly it’s Zogby and Corbett who have been living under a rock.

As a faculty member in a PASSHE school, I can attest to the continual budget-cutting under our previous governor. The mantra of the last five or more years has been “do more with less”. We have. We are as lean and efficient as it is possible to be, and our education is much more affordable than our private peer institutions.

Posters who like to denigrate the State System Schools have obviously not set foot in one to observe the hard work and dedication of our faculty, staff, and students, and have no idea how much preparation and research we put into our jobs and courses.

It’s pretty easy to speak from the armchair, without actual facts in hand. Just remember you’re flippantly condemning many families (of faculty and parents of students currently in the system) to economic ruin by doing so.

Times have changed, Gov. Corbett, since you went to school, and mostly for the good. Tenure and Promotion in Higher Ed in the good old days were often done largely in the back room, not the rigorous processes of peer review we endure now. Our searches for faculty bring in talent from across the nation and the world, exposing our students to a broad range of thinking and expertise.

Sadly, it’s the price that’s gone up, thanks to a slowly dwindling state appropriation.