The Commonwealth System of Higher Education is a statutory designation by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that confers "state-related" status on four universities in Pennsylvania: Lincoln University, the Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh. The designation establishes the schools as an "instrumentality of the commonwealth"[1] and provides each university with annual, non-preferred[2] financial appropriations in exchange offering tuition discounts to students who are residents of Pennsylvania and a minority state-representation on each school's board of trustees.
The universities remain legally separate and private entities, operating under their own charters, governed by independent boards of trustees, and with assets under their own ownership and control, thereby retaining much of the freedom and individuality of private institutions, both administratively and academically.[3] It is the only public-private hybrid system of higher education of its particular type in the United States, although other schools, such as Cornell University, the University of Delaware, and Rutgers University,[4] also have public-private partnerships of their own kind.[5]
Because their annual state allocations account for less than 10% of their budgets, universities in the Commonwealth System tend to have higher tuition costs compared to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education which contains 10 state-owned and operated universities. Because of their independence, universities in the Commonwealth System are exempted from Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law except for a few minor provisions.[6]
Before the legal creation of state-related universities and colleges in the 1960s, Lincoln University, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh were fully private universities.[5] Temple and Pitt were granted state-related status by acts of the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1965 and 1966, respectively. Lincoln University, a historically Black university, was designated as a state-related university in 1972.[7]
Although the Pennsylvania State University, commonly known as Penn State, was founded as a private school, it was later designated as Pennsylvania's sole land-grant institution. It was repeatedly defined as a "state-owned university" in numerous official acts and Pennsylvania Attorney General opinions from its creation as a land-grant, then named the Pennsylvania State College. It was thus eligible to have its road system and buildings on state campuses constructed using state funding, paying its employees through state-issued checks, and having them eligible to collect state employee retirement system benefits.
Penn State was already treated and referred to as a public state-related university by the Commonwealth, including receiving non-preferred appropriations, when the other three universities were designated as state-related institutions by the legislature. In 1989, Penn State asserted a public status in court for the purpose of not having a private bank branch's operations on its University Park campus subject to local county taxes, while simultaneously asserting private status for the purpose of not having to reveal the salaries of its top administrative employees.[8] With the enabling legislation changing the failing Williamsport (PA) Area Community College to the affiliated "Pennsylvania College of Technology" in 1989, Penn State was reaffirmed as a "state-related" institution.
The following universities (listed with their branch and regional campuses) are members of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education:
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| School | U.S. News & World Report, Best Universities 2021[9][10] | U.S. News & World Report, Best Business Schools 2020[11] | U.S. News & World Report, Best Education Schools 2020[12] | U.S. News & World Report, Best Engineering Schools 2020[13] | U.S. News & World Report, Best Fine Arts Schools 2017[14] | U.S. News & World Report, Best Law Schools 2020[15] | U.S. News & World Report, Best Library & Information Studies Schools, 2018[16] | U.S. News & World Report, Best Medical Schools, Research[17] & Primary Care[18] 2020 | U.S. News & World Report, Best Nursing Schools, Masters[19] & Doctoral[20] 2020 | U.S. News & World Report, Best Public Affairs Schools 2020[21] | CMUP, Top Public American Research Universities 2017[22] | The Wall Street Journal/THE US College Rankings 2019[23] | Academic Ranking of World Universities 2019[24] | QS World University Rankings 2020[25] |
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| Lincoln University | 119th, Regional Universities (North) | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Pennsylvania State University | 63rd, National Universities (University Park) | 33rd (Smeal) | 39th | 35th | 69th | 64th (University Park) 71st (Dickinson) |
N/A | "unranked" | 26th & "unranked" | 82nd (Harrisburg) |
16th–17th | 104th | 98th | 93rd |
| Temple University | 102nd, National Universities | N/A | 45th | 124th | 15th (Tyler) | 48th (Beasley) | N/A | 60th & 85th (Katz) | N/A & 72nd | N/A | N/A | 168th | 301st–400th | 651st–700th |
| University of Pittsburgh | 58th, National Universities (Pittsburgh Campus) | 43rd (Katz) | 33rd | 47th (Swanson) | N/A | 77th | 10th | 13th & 14th | 12th & 9th | 35th | 13th–15th | 80th | 89th | 140th |
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Endowments (FY 2018*)
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Research and Development Expenditures (FY 2017)[28]
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