After confirming Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell signed the state budget for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the university's budget office is looking at what kind of tuition revenue will be needed for the upcoming year.
The budget office will work on this the next couple of days and Penn State President Graham Spanier will make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees at its meeting in Erie on Friday, Bill Mahon, vice president for university relations, wrote in an e-mail.
"State appropriation and tuition are the two main sources of funds that pay for the educational part of Penn State's budget. Having the appropriation figure now lets us nail down what the other part of the equation -- student tuition -- needs to be," Mahon wrote.
Penn State will receive $338.4 million in state funds this year, a 1.2 percent increase from last year.
The breakdown in appropriation includes: $267.4 million for education and general, $25.6 million for agricultural research, $30.4 million to cooperative extension, $13.1 million for Penn College and $454,000 to recruitment and retention of disadvantaged students, according to live.psu.edu.
Opinions about the amount Penn State is going to receive are varied.
"In this economic climate, just being able to get what we did is a testament not only to myself and the local senator but to universities being able to plead their case," Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre, said yesterday while in State College for a press conference unrelated to Penn State's increased state appropriations.
The best news, Tor Michaels, chief of staff for Conklin, told the Collegian on Sunday, is the funding for agriculture at the university will stay at the same level from last year.
However, State Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, said the increase was a disappointment.
"Gov. Rendell puts so much focus on basic education and to keep everything within a reasonable increase you have to be fair, but then it doesn't always leave a lot of room for higher education," he said. "We always try for at least a 3 percent increase, which is at least the cost of living."
Collegian Staff Writer Leslie Small contributed to this report.
