SHARON, Pa. – Rod Wilt, executive director of Penn-Northwest Development Corporation, said the community needs to let officials in University Park know how important Penn State Shenango is to Mercer County.
That’s due to a number of reasons, he said.
“No. 1, I think we are an education hub here in Mercer County with Grove City [College] and Thiel College and Penn State Shenango, and then Butler County Community College, and then the Career Center and LTI and all of the others with the training that goes on here,” Wilt said. “I think we do a great job of preparing our young people for careers.”
Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi announced Tuesday that some of the university’s campuses will close due to declining enrollment.
“We have made enhancements in enrollment management, fought for parity in state funding, and sought new ways to expand access,” the Penn State president’s message on the university website said. “Yet, despite these efforts, enrollment at many of our Commonwealth Campuses continues to decline, and many of the counties that host these campuses are expected to decrease in population for the next 30 years. Given these realities, we must make hard decisions now to ensure Penn State’s future remains strong. It has become clear that we cannot sustain a viable Commonwealth Campus ecosystem without closing some campuses.”
A final decision is expected before spring commencement, but no campuses will close before the end of the 2026-27 academic year.
Wilt doesn’t believe the problem is a Mercer County issue. It’s a Penn State main campus issue. From the early 2000s to 2015, the university added capacity at its main campus.
“So now I think they’ve cannibalized their ability to attract students to the commonwealth campuses because they’re accepting so many students to University Park to keep their dorms and classrooms full there,” he said.
He points to other colleges and universities, including Carnegie Mellon University, the Penn State main campus and the University of Pittsburgh, where enrollment has increased over the past 10 years. The same holds for other colleges in Mercer County, Wilt said, listing Grove City College and Thiel College, where he is chairman of the board.
“I think the call to action for us as an economic development organization is to really let University Park know that we value very highly having a Penn State commonwealth campus in our county,” Wilt said. “I think the Penn State alums, of which there are many in this community, need to also let their voices be heard.”
Two of the last three people hired at Penn-Northwest have been nontraditional students who earned their four-year degrees at Penn State Shenango, he said.
“They’re leaders, and they’re the future of this organization,” Wilt added. “So we’re very proud of them, and we know firsthand that Penn State Shenango produces great young people that can help move our county forward.”
Bendapudi, in her letter to the Penn State community, said the university has adapted and evolved for 170 years.
“The decisions we make now will position the University for another century of academic, research and service excellence,” she said in the letter. “This is about strengthening Penn State’s Commonwealth Campus ecosystem so that it can continue to thrive, in a form that aligns with today’s realities.”
Wilt said the community will fight for Penn State Shenango.
“We’re not taking this laying down, though,” he said. “Like everything else in our town and our community and our county, we’ve got to fight for it, so we’ll fight for this as well, just like we’re fighting for the hospital [Sharon Regional Medical Center], we’re fighting for Butler County Community College, and we’re always swimming upstream. But we’re going to make it.”