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Not Going to Happen (But What If…)

Let’s say all this Cal/Stanford strong arming by ND is the last straw for FSU and Clemson and they want out now.

I have no idea how/if they can break the GOR, it doesn’t seem possible but who knows right?

The SEC says they don’t want them (supposedly) and The B1G stands at 18 and might prefer a UNC/UVA add to the southern counterparts.

Is there a scenario in which FSU and Clemson come into the B12? They still get to be “big dogs” but in a much more stable and lucrative conference once the dust settles. I know their perceived value is a lot higher than $31.7 mil, but it’s just for a few more years until we renegotiate TV again. I can’t imagine a conference with both of them and the rest of our teams not seeing a substantial rate increase.

Again, I know this isn’t happening. But the stuff currently going on in the ACC and the clean rift is fascinating.

Top House Republican rips ‘damning picture’ of Pedo-Joe with Coker-linked adviser on 2015 Ukraine trip

Break away from Trump's crotch long enough to look at the disaster you voted for president, bleaters. As I've said many times: Trump is a saint, compared to Pedo-Joe.

Democrats and their bleaters are destroying our country

LINK: Timeline of adviser's communications with Coker, meetings with VP about Burisma faces renewed scrutiny

House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is blasting a "damning photo" showing then-Vice President Pedo-Joe with his Coker Biden-linked current adviser aboard an Air Force Two flight during his infamous 2015 trip to Ukraine.

Amos Hochstein, Pedo-Joe’s current special presidential coordinator, was apparently in communication with Coker and Coker’s associates at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings when the first son was serving on the firm’s board, according to emails previously reported by Fox News Digital.

A photo taken by White House photographer David Lienemann shows Pedo-Joe being briefed by Hochstein aboard Air Force Two on his way to meet Ukrainian leaders in Kiev on Dec. 6, 2015, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if they did not fire their top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

"This damning picture of then Vice President Pedo-Joe on Air Force Two en route to Ukraine talking with Amos Hochstein is just further evidence that Pedo-Joe and senior officials in the pedo Administration not only knew of Coker Biden's corrupt foreign business dealings, but also that Pedo-Joe was intimately involved while Vice President," Stefanik told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Biden and Hochstein


"At the time of this photo, Hochstein was in communication with Coker Biden and Burisma where Coker served on the board," she continued. "We also know that this photo was taken on Air Force Two ahead of Pedo-Joe's now infamous meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, where Pedo-Joe threatened to have aid withheld if a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma was not fired."

"All evidence points directly to Pedo-Joe being deeply compromised. House Republicans will leave no stone unturned in our investigations into Pedo-Joe’s involvement in his family's influence peddling scheme," she added.

Hochstein, who served as special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs under the homObama-Pedo-Joe administration, was tapped as Pedo-Joe’s special coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security in August 2021, and he was made special presidential coordinator to Pedo-Joe in February 2022.

Fox News Digital reported in June that in the summer of 2014, shortly after joining the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, Coker and his associates at Burisma and his now-defunct Rosemont Seneca Partners discussed speaking with Hochstein for contacts who could help navigate a new tax in Ukraine on private energy companies.

On July 31, 2014, top Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi expressed frustration in an email to the group that the Ukrainian parliament had "voted in favor of the package of laws, among which is a draft law on raising the tax for private gas producers."

Minutes later, Heather King, who did crisis communications for Burisma at the time and was in frequent communication with Coker, said she was concerned by the news.

"This news is very concerning," she wrote. "I assume you will be sending an email to the State Dept today about this? We will also get you connected with the US Embassy contact so you can hopefully meet with the guy Hochstein recommended as soon as possible."

Nearly two months later, on Sept. 24, 2014, Pozharskyi emailed another communications consultant, Georgette Spanjich, and copied King, Burisma lobbyist David Leiter and Burisma board member Devon Archer, writing that "Ukrainian authorities are still pushing for further legislative initiatives which are going to cause even more damage to the gas industry."

"I am genuinely looking forward to your ideas on how we could influence this process," Pozharskyi wrote. "Please, note that I am going to share this information with the US embassy here in Kyiv, as well as the office of Mr Amos Hochstein in the States."

On Nov. 13, 2014, seven weeks after Pozharskyi said he would forward Burisma’s response to the Ukrainian tax hike to Hochstein’s office, Hochstein attended a meeting at Pedo-Joe’s Naval Observatory residence, according to White House visitor logs.

The next day, Eric Schwerin, the then-president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, sent Coker a link, without comment, to Hochstein’s biography on the State Department’s website.

Hochstein’s biography


Three days later, on Nov. 17, 2014, Hochstein met with Kathy Chung, according to the White House visitor logs. Chung was Pedo-Joe’s executive assistant at the time and now serves as the Pentagon's deputy director of protocol.

A few days later, Coker asked Schwerin to send Hochstein’s contact information to Archer, Coker’s fellow Burisma board member and a co-founder of Rosemont Seneca Partners.

A couple of weeks later, on Dec. 11, 2014, Hochstein met with Pedo-Joe and Chung in two separate meetings and later attended a holiday party at Pedo-Joe's residence that same day. Four days later, Hochstein attended a "meeting" at the vice president’s residence, according to White House visitor logs.

Four months later, on April 16, 2015, Hochstein met with Pedo-Joe in the West Wing of the White House, the visitor logs show.

That meeting took place the same day that Coker introduced his father to Burisma executive Pozharskyi and other business associates from Kazakhstan and Russia during a dinner at Café Milano in Washington, D.C., Fox News Digital previously reported. It is unclear whether Burisma or Pozharskyi's visit to Washington, D.C., was mentioned during that meeting.

The day after the dinner, Coker received an email from Pozharskyi that read, "Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together."

Two months later, on June 17, 2015, Hochstein met with Pedo-Joe twice, according to the visitor logs. He met with Pedo-Joe again the next month in the West Wing on July 13, 2015 and with Chung again months later on Nov. 2, 2015.

According to a Senate Republican report on Coker’s business dealings released in December 2020, testimony and public records show that Hochstein in October 2015 raised concerns with both Pedo-Joe and Coker that Hunter's position on Burisma’s board enabled Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine.

Victoria Nuland, who was serving as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2015, testified to Congress in 2020 that Hochstein had another conversation about Coker's position on Burisma’s board with Biden on the way to Ukraine in 2015, according to the Senate report, during the same plane ride shown in the photograph criticized by Stefanik.

During Hochstein’s testimony in the 2020 report, he recounted that he spoke with Pedo-Joe about Burisma in the West Wing of the White House in October 2015. According to visitor logs, he visited the White House three times in October 2015, with two of the visits occurring in the West Wing and the other on the second floor of the West Wing.

"We were starting to think about a trip to Ukraine, and I wanted to make sure that he [Vice President Pedo-Joe] was aware that there was an increase in chatter on media outlets close to Russians and corrupt oligarchs-owned media outlets about undermining his message—to try to undermine his [Vice President Pedo-Joe’s] message and including Coker Biden being part of the board of Burisma," Hochstein told Congress, according to the report.

According to Hochstein, Pedo-Joe told Coker about the meeting, prompting Coker to request a meeting with Hochstein, according to the 2020 Senate Republican report.

"You are all set to meet with Amos on Friday at 4pm for coffee," Joan Mayer emailed Coker on Nov. 3, 2015, referring to their Nov. 6 meeting. She later emailed Coker to let him know the Nov. 6 meeting with Hochstein at a Starbucks in Georgetown had been moved to 3 p.m. Hochstein met with Pedo-Joe in the White House Situation Room the day before on Nov. 5, 2015, the visitor logs say.


Hochstein meeting


"Well, he [Coker] asked me for a meeting," Hochstein said in his testimony. "I think he wanted to know my views on Burisma and Zlochevsky. And so I shared with him that the Russians were using his name in order to sow disinformation—attempt to sow disinformation among Ukrainians."

The report said Hochstein "did not go so far as to recommend that Coker leave the board," citing an earlier article by the New Yorker.

About a week later, on Nov. 12, 2016, Mayer let Coker know that he missed a call from Hochstein, adding, "Please call back today if possible." Hochstein met with Vice President Pedo-Joe again in the White House Situation Room less than two weeks later, on Nov. 23, 2015.

Missed call


On Dec. 11, 2015, two days after they returned from Ukraine, Hochstein met with Pedo-Joe in the West Wing.

Pedo-Joe visited Ukraine from Dec. 7-9, 2015. Three months after the visit, Shokin was fired, and Pedo-Joe would later use it to boast about his foreign policy skills.

Shokin was investigating Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder and then-president of Burisma Holdings, where Coker served as a board member from April 2014 to April 2019. Pedo-Joe's defenders have said that Shokin was fired not because he was pursuing corruption too aggressively, but rather because he was too lax.

On Dec. 17, 2015, less than a week after his meeting with Pedo-Joe, Hochstein attended a holiday party at the vice president's Naval Observatory residence, where Coker was also in attendance.

Hochstein visited Pedo-Joe at least another six times in 2016, including the day after Shokin was fired on March 29, 2016.

The homObama administration had pushed for Shokin’s firing, and Pedo-Joe boasted on camera in 2018 that when he was vice president he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin.

"I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money," Pedo-Joe said in 2018, according to a transcript of his remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Well, son of a b----. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."

The White House and the State Department did not respond to Fox News Digital requests for comment.
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House GOP to subpoena Biden family: 'Bank records don't lie,' Rep. Comer says

Could you imagine if it were Trump and his son unde a Democrat-controlled house? Shew!

LINK: Rep. James Comer, GOP eye subpoenas for Pedo-Joe and Coker in influence peddling case

Pedo-Joe and his son Coker may have their day in court as the House Oversight Committee prepares to subpoena the father-and-son duo amid the ongoing probe into the family's business dealings.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., joined "Mornings with Maria" on Thursday to discuss the latest fallout from the Biden family business probe, telling host Maria Bartiromo that the House Oversight Committee plans to subpoena the Bidens.

"We're putting together a case, and I think we've done that very well," Comer expressed.

"We know that this is going to end up in court when we subpoena the Bidens," he added.

The GOP-led committee released new Biden family bank records showing that the Bidens took in at least $20 million from countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

"I wish the media would ask the president, what exactly did your family do to receive this $21 million that the House Oversight Committee has proven? He just continues to say, 'well, that's a lie. That's not true.' We have their bank records, Maria. Bank records don't lie," Comer said.

The House Oversight chair continued, arguing that he and his colleagues have caught Pedo-Joe in "so many lies" as the president continues to deny any involvement in his son's business.

"This is always going to end with the Bidens coming in front of the committee," Comer said.

The Kentucky representative continues to dig deeper into the Biden family's web of business dealings. After numerous documents and countless testimonies, he is confident in the case that the committee is building against the Biden family.

"This is a complicated case, and we're being obstructed every step of the way by the Department of Justice, by the FBI, by the Secret Service, by the IRS, and by the Biden family attorneys," Comer explained.

Despite being stonewalled by the government's top institutions, Comer said it will not stop the committee's efforts.

"We continue to produce evidence about every two weeks," he said.
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WSJ: Colleges Spend Like There's No Tomorrow (LONG)

Sounds familiar yet our BOG rewards Dr. Gee for his neglect and absolute lack of care towards our University. I am sick over the Gee extension. What a joke the BOG and this institution has become. We must change leadership and get WVU back on track.


The nation’s best-known public universities have been on an unfettered spending spree. Over the past two decades, they erected new skylines comprising snazzy academic buildings and dorms. They poured money into big-time sports programs and hired layers of administrators.

Then they passed the bill along to students.

The University of Kentucky upgraded its campus to the tune of $805,000 a day for more than a decade. Its freshmen, who come from one of America’s poorest states, paid an average $18,693 to attend in 2021-22.

Pennsylvania State University spent so much money that it now has a budget crisis—even though it’s among the most expensive public universities in the U.S.

The University of Oklahoma hit students with some of the biggest tuition increases, while spending millions on projects including acquiring and renovating a 32,000-square-foot Italian monastery for its study-abroad program.

The spending is inextricably tied to the nation’s $1.6 trillion federal student debt crisis. Colleges poured out money in part by raising tuition prices, leaving many students with few options but to take on more debt. That means student loans served as easy financing for university projects.

“Students do not have the resources right now to continue to foot the bill for all of the things that the university wants to do,” said Crispin South, a 2023 Oklahoma graduate. “You can’t just continue to raise revenue by turning to students.”

It has long been clear to American families that the cost of college has gone up, even at public schools designed to be affordable for state residents. To get at the root cause, The Wall Street Journal examined financial statements since 2002 from 50 universities known as flagships, typically the oldest public school in each state, and adjusted for inflation.

At the median flagship university, spending rose 38% between 2002 and 2022.

Only one school in the Journal’s analysis—the University of Idaho—spent less.

The schools paid for it in part by pulling in tuition dollars. The median flagship received more than double the revenue from undergraduate and graduate tuition and fees it did 20 years prior. Even accounting for enrollment gains, that amounted to a 64% price increase for the average student, far outpacing the growth in most big household expenses.

Public university leaders often blame stingier state funding for the need to raise tuition revenue. And three-fourths of states did cut their support, undermining a longstanding principle that schools educated the populace with government backing. But universities generally didn’t tighten their belts as a result. Rather, they raised prices far beyond what was needed to fill the hole.

For every $1 lost in state support at those universities over the two decades, the median school increased tuition and fee revenue by nearly $2.40, more than covering the cuts, the Journal found.

Through it all, schools operated in a culture that valued unrelenting growth and prioritized raising revenue over cutting costs. Administrators established ambitious strategic plans and tried to lure wealthy students with luxurious amenities. Influential college rankings rewarded those that spent more.

Many university officials struggled to understand their own budgets and simply increased spending every year. Trustees demanded little accountability and often rubber-stamped what came before them. And schools inconsistently disclose what they spend, making it nearly impossible for the public to review how their tuition and tax dollars are being used.

“These places are just devouring money,” said Holden Thorp, who was chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008 to 2013 and is now editor in chief of Science. Offering everything to everyone all at once is unsustainable, he said. “Universities need to focus on what their true priorities are and what they were created to do,” he said.

Colleges invested money inside and outside the classroom, including to improve technology, expand counseling and intramural sports, and build facilities such as modern dorms and new stadiums.

To examine public university spending, the Journal collected data from audits, archived budget websites and documents received through public-records requests covering expenses in fiscal 2002, 2012 and 2022.

Much of the increase in outlays showed up in the hiring process, for administrators, faculty, coaches and finance experts, the Journal’s analysis found. Salaries and benefits, which usually eat up more than half of operating budgets, rose by roughly 40% at the median flagship since 2002.

The University of Florida in 2022 had more than 50 employees with titles of director, associate director or assistant director of communications, roughly double the number it had in 2017. The school also employed more than 160 assistant, associate, executive and other types of deans last year, up from about 130 in 2017.

Spokesman Steve Orlando said the university is decentralized and different departments have the freedom to hire as they need.

Inflation-adjusted spending on athletic coaches rose by about half between 2010 and 2022 at the median flagship, the Journal’s analysis of data from the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database found. The Journal used data from the period with the most complete figures.

Though a handful of powerhouse sports departments pay for themselves, most can break even only with student fees and university subsidies.

Across all flagships with available data, that additional funding totaled $632 million in 2022. That’s a jump of 27% from 12 years prior.

The University of Connecticut won the national championship this spring in men’s basketball, and its women’s team has been a near-constant presence in the Final Four. Yet since 2016, Connecticut’s athletic department has received more than $35 million annually in student fees and university subsidies to stay afloat. In 2022, it took in $55 million in such funds, making up more than half its total athletics budget.

The school said more than $13 million of that subsidy covered a payout to a former men’s basketball coach as part of a legal settlement over his employment contract, and that it faces unique challenges in having to pay rent and other fees for basketball and hockey games, which are played off campus.

Overall, the University of Connecticut’s spending rose by 73% between 2002 and 2022, far faster than enrollment grew. Much of that was driven by personnel costs, with spending on benefits more than tripling.

Reka Wrynn, associate vice president of budget, planning and institutional research, said that was in part because the school was on the hook for a growing share of the state’s unfunded pension liability. Connecticut was also obligated to pay for raises that unionized employees negotiated with the state, she said.

Colleges have faced little accountability over their budgets in part because they aren’t required to track expenses in a uniform way. And Education Department data on college finances often contain errors and don’t match audited figures.

Schools use their own discretion to categorize spending on audited financial statements, making precise comparisons at a single school over time, or among different schools, extremely difficult. Colleges, for example, sometimes classify professors’ salaries as instructional spending one year and as research expenses the next.

Universities view audits “more as a requirement than a tool for the public,” said Robert Kelchen, an education professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville who researches university finance.

The growth in schools’ spending was particularly aggressive between 2002 and 2012, with total operating expenses rising a median 30%. Some schools began to pull back on spending in the subsequent decade, under the dual financial pressures of a recession and pandemic. Amid national outcry about student debt, they also slowed the rate at which they increased tuition.

But spending still climbed. Total operating expenses rose nearly 10% from 2012 to 2022 at the median university.

In some cases, colleges spent more as the student body grew, with the typical flagship increasing enrollment by about 20% over the past two decades. Adding students may in some cases be expensive—requiring new dorms and classroom space—or relatively inexpensive, especially for online students. Nonetheless, spending per student rose, by a median 15% over the past two decades.

The schools have passed the tab on to students even in the nation’s poorest states. Most of these schools increased financial aid for low-income students, but that hasn’t fully offset rising tuition for many families.

Kentucky has among the country’s lowest median household income. What in-state students paid in 2021-22 put Kentucky in the top half of flagship schools ranked by cost. Those figures, from the Education Department, cover what the average freshman paid in tuition, fees, room and board after scholarships.

Kentucky on its website touts the total of $3.66 billion spent on its Lexington campus overhaul over the past dozen years. That included new homes for the law, business and visual-arts schools, state-of-the-art hospital facilities, a student center, a 900-spot parking garage, a theater for videogame competitions and dorms sporting full-size Tempur-Pedic mattresses, granite countertops and in-unit washer-dryers.

Private developers were involved in some projects but more than half of the total construction costs were paid for with university funds.

“Our residence halls meet student and family needs and expectations, while emphasizing learning and connectedness,” university spokesman Jay Blanton said. He said that some features in the dorms, such as the countertops, lower maintenance expenses, and that the Tempur-Pedic mattresses were purchased at a comparable cost to traditional ones.

The school set out decades ago to become one of the best universities in the country. Specifically, it targeted a spot among the top 20 public schools that conduct research and offer doctoral degrees, according to a 1997 state mandate. Despite the directive, the legislature began reducing its funding. Over 20 years, appropriations fell by nearly half.

“We will not trim our aspirations,” President Eli Capilouto said in 2016. “But we do have to find more creative ways to power our progress.” Kentucky boosted research funding and faculty salaries, which helped it attract talent.

Some college rankings, including U.S. News & World Report, reward spending in those categories as well as student services such as clubs and cultural events. They don’t necessarily credit moves that make schools more efficient. The Journal’s college rankings also took spending into consideration, though it is dropping that measure in coming reports.

For all Kentucky’s effort, U.S. News ranked the school No. 64 among public universities in 2022, actually dropping a few spots from where it had been a decade earlier.

But the bill for students grew. Kentucky took in about 70% more in tuition and fee revenue per student than it did 20 years ago.

In 2017, Rowan Reid was Kentucky’s student government president and held a seat on the university board. When asked to vote for a 4% increase on tuition for in-state undergraduates, she urged her fellow board members to hold the school more accountable.

“We address efficiencies only to a point where we can pass on the remaining deficit to students,” Reid said at the time. “To me this feels wrong.”

The tuition increase passed 16 to one, with Reid as the only “no” vote. Looking back this spring on her time with the board, Reid said she had a mandate to look out for students’ interests but was torn as to how she could reconcile that with what was best for the university.

The school said it has decelerated the rate of increase for tuition and fees over the past several years, and students from the lowest-income families receive scholarship support.

Blanton said Kentucky continues to grow and aspire to be recognized as one of the best public research institutions in the country but has shifted to a broader focus of advancing the state.

Schools loaded their campuses with state-of-the-art recreation centers and dorms to appeal to students with top test scores and minimal need for financial aid. The price for these amenities was then baked into the bills for all students, including with fees students paid to cover construction debt.

Tuition and fee revenue per student climbed by double digits in the past 20 years at every school in the Journal’s analysis. The average student paid more because many schools both upped prices and increased the percentage of higher-paying students from out of state.

At the University of Oklahoma, per-student tuition and fees rose 166%, the most of any flagship. The school also borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to perform building upgrades and erect new dormitories.

“We levered up the balance sheet to avoid dealing with [financial] reality,” said Oklahoma President Joseph Harroz Jr., who took the helm in 2019. Across higher education, he said, “there was an arms race.”

Beginning in 2009, the university spent $14.3 million to buy and renovate a monastery in Arezzo, Italy, to house a new study-abroad program. The monastery has a landscaped garden, faculty apartment and classrooms featuring painted frescoes.

The school said it was paid for by a mix of private gifts and university funds.

“Would I go and do one of those right now? No,” Harroz said. “It wouldn’t be the best use of capital dollars.”

Harroz said that under some of his predecessors, the school didn’t maintain long-term budget plans or prioritize its needs over its wishes. Oklahoma has since changed course, he said, and the university cut $143 million in expenses at the main campus in Norman since 2018.

The increase in tuition at Oklahoma came after the state legislature gave school regents tuition-setting authority in the early 2000s, a move designed to allow the school to catch up with its peers’ rates, said University of Oklahoma spokeswoman April Sandefer. She said its increases have slowed in recent years, and more than half of Oklahoma undergraduates leave school debt-free thanks to a growing financial-aid budget.

Research by James V. Koch, an economist who studies college spending and a former president at Old Dominion University in Virginia, found that public-university trustees approved 98% of the cost-increasing proposals they reviewed, often unanimously. In most states, he said, there hasn’t been anyone to say, “No, you can’t do that.”

Back in 2005, a Hawaii state audit called out the University of Hawaii System board for approving a budget that gave the flagship Manoa campus $200 million when, auditors said, all but $13 million went to vague or unnecessary requests.

Honolulu attorney Benjamin Kudo, who joined the university’s board in 2011, said he was stunned by the lack of information he was given during the budget process. He said he received a packet of pie charts and a PowerPoint presentation with general information on how the university planned to divide up its funds for areas including teaching, libraries, athletics and facilities across 10 campuses.

Kudo said administrators weren’t initially receptive to requests that he and another new board member, Jan Sullivan, made for more detail, including a comparison of projected versus actual spending. Kudo, who served on the board until 2022, recalled being accused of trying to micromanage the $1 billion budget.

School officials expected him to follow the lead of prior trustees, Kudo said: “It’s basically an automatic approval of whatever the administration wants.”

Sullivan also said such rubber stamping was typical early in her tenure. After a few years of nagging, Sullivan and Kudo said, the board received more detailed financial information, and it stopped greenlighting so many requests.

University of Hawaii President David Lassner said the university has changed. He decried a time around a decade ago, shortly after he was named interim president, when the board found out about depleted reserves by reviewing audited financial statements that had been produced six months after the fiscal year closed.

“That is no way to understand the financial health of something as big and complicated as this,” he said. “We’re certainly not budgeting by pie charts anymore.”

Penn State, like many schools, long relied on a simple approach to budgeting, in which each department generally received the same amount of money it got the prior year plus a little more to cover inflation. Dollars were rarely tied to enrollment shifts or demonstrated need.

The school’s spending rose 36% since 2002. That number excludes the university’s health system, which the Journal removed from its analysis where possible. Total tuition and fee revenue from both undergraduate and graduate students increased 72% over the past two decades, far faster than enrollment grew.

Penn State’s University Park campus was the country’s most expensive state flagship in the 2021-22 school year for in-state freshmen after scholarships. Those students paid an average $26,747 in tuition, fees, room and board, according to the Education Department data.

The school said it offers students the option of starting at one of its less expensive regional campuses and finishing at University Park, and has increased financial aid significantly.

Penn State cut spending nearly 3% between 2012 and 2022. Still, the university’s 2022-23 budget forecast spending that was $140 million more than its revenue.

It’s not the first time expenditures were projected to outpace revenue, and Penn State determined last year it was on track to blow through its $350 million reserve funds in the next few years if it didn’t change course. Trustees gave the administration until 2025 to balance the budget.

Trustee Barry Fenchak criticized his fellow board members at the meeting when they voted last summer to increase tuition and fees by 5% for in-state students at the University Park campus after the state held funding flat.

“I think the knee-jerk reaction was, ‘OK, we’ve got to raise tuition,’ and I think perhaps the knee-jerk reaction should have been, ‘We need to get to work on the things we should’ve been doing for the last 10 years and light a bit of a fire underneath our behinds’ ” to address costs, he said.

Several trustees at the meeting said the decision was based on thorough analysis.

At meeting after meeting for decades, Penn State board members complained of the state’s anemic support while they simultaneously approved hundreds of millions of dollars in new construction, according to board minutes.

The university’s state appropriation fell 39% over the past 20 years, and the school receives among the lowest state support per student of U.S. flagships.

Growth in tuition revenue has more than made up for declining state funding. On a per-student basis, Penn State received nearly $2.25 in additional tuition revenue for every $1 lost in state support, compared with $1.25 in tuition revenue added at the median school.

“We acknowledge that tuition has increased quite a bit over the past 20 years, which is a large stretch of time for such a comparison when taking into account growth in student needs, services, technology, stem fields, academic support, mental health services etc. and considering our stagnant state funding,” said Lisa Powers, a school spokeswoman.

Mary Isaacson, a Democrat and chair of the subcommittee on higher education in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, said that while public funding declined, the school’s aggressive physical growth and lengthy wish list also helped put it on its path to financial insecurity.

Penn State said much of the construction was necessary to replace aging facilities, and that factors such as inflation and the pandemic drove up costs, too.

The university said last year it would revise the way it sets its operating budget. The new model, it said, will take into account enrollment changes and available resources, and be data-driven.
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RECRUITING UPDATE A reminder of an upcoming announcement

On Thursday Auburndale, FL defensive lineman Nate Gabriel will announce his commitment. That's one you'll want to watch closely. On Saturday night he went live on Instagram and his friend was on with him, the friend repeatedly made jokes about how there was no point in waiting because Nate was choosing WVU. They had a good time laughing about it and Nate would point to his shower cap from FAMU when WVU was mentioned. He was trying to add a little suspense.

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The ACC truly never learned from the Big East

We are told Notre Dame is pushing hard for the additions of Stanford and Cal.

That the Irish have full voting rights in the first place is a story unto itself. Because it feels like Notre Dame's loyalty and commitment to the ACC is about as real and meaningful as Lennay Kekua.

Even when you detach yourself from seeing Clemson's side of things, objectively this feels like a problem.

"It's definitely odd," a highly-placed contact said today when we expressed our incredulity.

ACC proving the think with their "u know whats"?

Adding Cal and Stanford is about as short sighted as their GOR and their relationship with ND. They are laughable in their consistent refusal to consider impacts of such decisions and instead constantly focus on image and trying to appear like a big deal on the surface, mainly do to their own feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. I mean why add two schools who will not boost per school revenue or be competitive on the field....simply to pretend they are part of this round and to say they are coast to coast. I really hope they do this as it will be another shot across the bow of their sports schools like FSU and Clemson, who will leave as the conference withers into one less competitive then the MWC and on par with the AAC.

WVSPORTS.COM West Virginia head coach Neal Brown press conference summary

--West Virginia went Monday in shells and today went pull pads and they tackled today. A lot of situational work and 11-on-11 work. Friday they will do some team stuff but it won't be as physical but Saturday night they will do their first live scrimmage and do 45-50 plays. Then they'll take Sunday off and do it all over again. They are intentional about being physical and they will tackle as much as they are allowed to. Their ability to be mentally and physically tough will be essential.

--They did a good on good tackling drill yesterday and today and there was growth. Tackling is two things one is want to and then run your feet and shoot your arms. To break a tackle is being efficient with your moves and getting vertical and running behind your pads. Defensively Tyrin Bradley on the edge has a physical demeanor about him and he showed up. Jared Bartlett has gotten stronger and is playing run blocks better than before. Lee Kpogba is going to make a big jump this year.

--Anthony Wilson is making a big jump to be ready to play. At cornerback, Jacolby Spells has really looked good through seven practices and he has made plays. Beanie Bishop is pushing at cornerback and Mike Lockhart has started to separate himself as well as Eddie Vesterinen. At WILL linebacker, they want to wait until Saturday. Devin Carter has separated at wide receiver. EJ Horton made a couple plays down field today at wide receiver and he's giving himself a chance to play. Jaheim White is giving himself opportunities to play. Kole Taylor and Treylan Davis have separated at tight end.

--Yesterday halfway through practice Nicco Marchiol had as poor decision making as he's had but he was able to correct it and 4 of his next 6 plays were explosive plays. He took an ass chewing and bounced back. In red zone today, it was ebb and flow with him but he made two big time plays. They have to clean up decision making but impressed with how he handled adversity. Garrett Greene had a couple big runs in team period and made a tight throw down in the red zone. They are continuing to rep them and he doesn't have an answer for when they make a call on a starter.

--Some of them start to hide when the pads come on but it's a different game when the contact starts. Brown had a conversation with Kpogba at media days and he said they're going to do a lot more 11-on-11 work and be physical. He said the reason they won't be significantly better is that they didn't tackle enough in fall camp. Kpogba helped to sell that message to the rest of the team and they needed to be more physical across the board. There is a fine line between what's enough and what's too much? Brown really wishes that in fall camp they have to look at with television and the money to combine practices against another team. The product would be better early in the year if you could do that.

--Brown has been talking that they need to be a disciplined team, a team that strains and a team that is mentally and physically tough. They have to be put in situations that stress that. It's an evaluation process through a week through Saturday. And while some of the battles will extend, the coaches are looking at all of those factors.

--Michael Hayes had a 50-yarder at the end of practice Saturday and hit one today that was 45-50 yards. Pleased with him and Danny King is putting pressure on him, too.

--Versatility at the punting spot as Oliver Straw can kick it so many different ways. He has all the tools from a kicking perspective to give them a lot of flexibility from a protection standpoint. He's not affected if he misses a punt or if somebody gets on him it rolls off of him. He's handled success so his demeanor is good. He understands the game and where the protection is weak and he can help them out as far as how he positions himself. Whatever directional punt you're calling he needs to hit that in the right direction, hang time is important but the difference is the launch points.

--Rodney Gallagher had to step to the free throw line to win the WPIAL championship so he had to handle pressure so the situation won't be too big for him. So anytime you can witness people perform under pressure, those are competition reps.

--Practicing in the mornings that's a change. They've always practiced in the morning in the spring due to classes, but since COVID a lot of classes are online and the players liked it better in the mornings. Brown asked the players about practice in the morning and it was overwhelmingly positive. They don't start anything until 8 so the exact same schedule they have is what they'll do when school starts next week. Science stuff says it helps them to practice in the morning with recovery.

--From a physicality standpoint the hardest thing gets done first practicing early and it just flows better.

--Today is the day that's hard. You have three of four days that are hard and yesterday and today were hard physical practices and he was happy with how they answered.

--Danny King and Michael Hughes are kicking off more consistently and with more distance than anytime the last four years.

--I like being a punt team that can focus on coverage. Those free release people. Punt team is built on speed and you can move the launch point around. Preferably would like to continue with that.

--Traylon Ray is smooth. I like him, he's a player. He's long, he has really good ball skills and is highly intelligent. His high school coach was the coach for the Op Rattlesnakes and they run a lot of the same concepts they run and he's going to be a good player. It's not out of the question he'll play right away.

--Brown said as coaches they've been able to get ahead on Penn State in the off-season, but what they do is a lead in with walk throughs in the evening they go through opponent looks and a mock game week after that second scrimmage. That will be half cleaning up what they want to put into the season and that Tuesday will have to start turning the music up. They have to start turning the music up to get ready for Penn State.

--Those regional rivalries are important. The Pitt game should be played every year. The Pitt game is one of the best rivalries in all of college football and it makes it hard to play those other regional games. What's best for the program is you play that Pitt game, a G5 at home and an FCS at home and nine league games which gives you 7 home games. That's the best opportunity for success and best for the fans and allows you to build early in the year. Brown is all in on the Backyard Brawl. The Virginia Tech game was awesome and the Penn State game is great, but it's not in the best interest to play both those games in the same calendar year.

Several FBI offices contributed to anti-Catholic memo, refuting Wray’s testimony

Nothing to see here. Just more corruption from the pedo administration

Democrats and their bleaters are destroying our country

LINK: GOP lawmakers say the subpoenaed document details how FBI Portland and Los Angeles field offices contributed to the Richmond anti-Catholic memo

EXCERPT: "This new information suggests that the FBI’s use of its law enforcement capabilities to intrude on American’s First Amendment rights is more widespread than initially suspected,"
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