Pennsylvania legislators have before them five options to try to right the listing ship that is the system of 14 state universities, including East Stroudsburg.

The Legislative Budget and Finance Committee heard a representative for the Rand Corp., which conducted a monthslong study, say dynamic rethinking needs to be the order of the day if the system is going to remain vibrant and viable.

Enrollment is down 15 percent in the past seven years — from a high of 120,000 in 2010 to 102,000 last year.

Charles Goldman, chief economist with the Rand Corp., told the committee members that “major structural changes” need to be made. He admitted that some of these measures will be difficult pills to swallow and will likely bring opposition from administrators, employees and the communities in which these universities are located.

Here are the options Rand laid out for the committee:

• Keep the system as it is but free it from some of the onerous procurement and construction regulations.

• Reduce the 14 to five to eight through regional mergers.

• Convert the universities to state-related status such as Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh.

• Put the system of universities under the management of a state-related school for about a decade.

• Merge the state system universities into branches of the state-related schools.

The head of the statewide faculty union, Kenneth Mash, criticized the report saying the real problem is state funding. Pennsylvania, he said, is 47th in the nation in per capita funding for its colleges and universities. He also criticized the cost of this and an earlier study — $650,000 in all — saying that this money could have paid for tuition for nearly 87 students.

The annual tuition at East Stroudsburg and other state schools was $7,492 for the just concluded academic year. This does not include room and board.

The troubling report comes as many colleges in the nation struggle with falling enrollment brought on by a number of factors, including declining numbers of high school graduates, higher tuition and greater competition for students in higher education.

There is also a movement among potential college students to go in a different direction and opt for careers where a college degree is not needed, especially when tuition at some private colleges is eclipsing $50,000 a year.

Enrollment at the 14 colleges has declined for seven straight years. This, along with steep cuts in state funding during the Tom Corbett governorship, and increased contractual costs, has fast-tracked the problems.

Although funding has improved under Gov. Tom Wolf, it is still an estimated $60 million below what it was in 2007, the year before the Great Recession began.

In his budget address in February, Wolf said he would not seek increases in the big-ticket broad-based levies — the state income and sales taxes — because he saw how these proposals were dead in the water during the previous budget seasons.

Instead, Wolf initiated the idea of merging and consolidating state agencies. While not many thought that the state universities would be part of this consideration, it now appears that everything is on the table. Pretty much nothing is safe from the budgetary scalpel.

Enrollment ranges from more than 17,000 students at West Chester University to 746 at Cheyney University, which has lost almost half of its enrollment in six years. East Stroudsburg’s enrollment is about 6,800, down from a peak of 7,400 in 2010, a loss of about 8 percent.

The other 11 state universities are: Kutztown, Bloomsburg, Millersville, Mansfield, Lock Haven, Indiana, California, Edinboro, Slippery Rock, Shippensburg and Clarion.

In many of these communities, the university is the major economic engine and its closure or downsizing could result in the loss of hundreds, even thousands of good-paying jobs.

I was astounded to find that the Rand study did not include interviews with any governmental leaders in these communities, such as members of East Stroudsburg Borough Council, nor were all 14 schools visited. These were major oversights.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com