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Local institutions of higher education got a shout out during an online live chat between State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and Tom Foley, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania.
				King&rsquo;s College, Wilkes University and Marywood University were mentioned directly while one reference seemed to refer to Misericordia University without naming it.
				DePasquale touted the chat as a look at how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting private colleges, universities and students in the state. Foley opened with a string of numbers regarding who the schools serve.
				&ldquo;We have 51% of all the students pursuing four-year degrees&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we have 50% of minorities. We have 49% &mdash; and this surprises people &mdash; of all the mature students, students studying for a second career, etc. We have 44% of the low income students.&rdquo; Another 39% of all students who are first-generation college students attend the independent colleges.
				Foley cited an economic impact study his organization commissioned about a year ago that showed the schools combined contribute $24 billion to the state Gross National Product. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s about $2 billion more than Google made last year.&rdquo; And while the schools are non-profits, they contribute $1.1 billion in state and local taxes through employees. Students spend $3.3 billion in the communities that host the schools.
				Discussing the local impact, Foley mentioned Marywood among other small schools where &ldquo;those little communities really live or die&rdquo; on the existence of the university. Talking about economic development projects many colleges and universities conduct in their communities, he noted the projects that have been undertaken by Wilkes University and King&rsquo;s College.
				&ldquo;Those two presidents, any economic development project that is happening there, they&rsquo;re going to be involved. That is just the nature of it now.&rdquo; He also cited the hours students provide in community service. &ldquo;Students provide over 5.3 million hours of volunteer service in all 67 counties.&rdquo; Foley said.
				And he talked about small business centers, special Olympic programs and other community services. &ldquo;One of our schools in Northeast Pennsylvania has the only autism center serving 13 counties.&rdquo; Misericordia University houses an autism center that is one of five &ldquo;Autism Collaborative Centers of Excellence&rdquo; serving a 13 county region. Other university-based hubs are at East Stroudsburg University and The University of Scranton.
				DePasquale and Foley turned to the impact of the pandemic, which some experts have warned could cut income so severely for smaller independent private colleges and universities that they will have to close. The schools are adapting rapidly, Foley said, re-thinking everything from &ldquo;what a classroom is&rdquo; to how to continue theatrical, music and newspaper activities when large gatherings remain dangerous or even banned.
				&ldquo;They have to re-imagine the whole idea of what engagement is in higher education,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;The good news is there are so many people at these institutions who are literally paid to think for a living.&rdquo;
				Foley praised the state for using federal COVID relief money quickly to increase state grants to students, and work to get students in the health sciences fields &ldquo;back into the labs&rdquo; they need to take to get certified and join the workforce. He also noted the first federal money given to state schools covered about 20 percent of the extra costs colleges and universities spent in the initial response to the pandemic through May.
				More needs to be done to protect what colleges and universities bring to the state, he said, but there have been good first steps.

Local higher-ed institutions get shout out in Auditor General online chat