By Jawad Malik, Penn State student leader
As many of you know, I’m a student at Penn State Mont Alto. What you may not know is that I was elected to represent all Commonwealth Campus students, over 10,000 across the state. I share this because I believe the well-being of students has been heavily downplayed throughout this process, particularly at the closing campuses.
To keep this simple, Penn State does not want to look incompetent for the mistake they made. The lack of transparency from University Park has left students, families and faculty in a state of confusion and fear. Just earlier, a nursing student came to me in tears, unsure how she’ll complete her senior year. Others have transferred back to Mont Alto from University Park because this campus gives them something that’s hard to find elsewhere: a sense of safety, belonging and personal growth.
As a Resident Assistant, I’ve met with administrators repeatedly and keep hearing that “what matters most now is the Penn State experience for the remaining students.” But what’s being forgotten is that Mont Alto is the Penn State experience for many of us. This campus is where generations of families have studied and worked. It’s where students from small towns finally feel seen and supported.
Right now, student mental health is declining, professors are leaving, and the campus is growing unstable under neglect. Some students are preparing to withdraw from the entire Penn State system. Others have already dropped out. First-years are anxious without direction. Sophomores are stuck without a place to finish their programs. Juniors are losing their community. Seniors are mourning the loss of a home they hoped to revisit for years to come. Education may be run like a business, but our futures cannot be reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. Mont Alto has always been one of the most affordable and accessible campuses in the system, and its loss will cut off an entry point to higher education for countless students who could never afford University Park or many other universities of the same quality.
The effects don’t end with the students. When students leave, so do the families who visit, the local businesses that depend on campus traffic and the programs that connect the university to local schools and employers. Mont Alto has always been intertwined with its community, and when it suffers, as you all may know, the region loses opportunities, jobs and a vital sense of identity.
Whether the campus remains under Penn State or transitions to another institution, our non-negotiable focus must be on preserving educational access, protecting current students and employees, and ensuring that Mont Alto’s legacy as a space for opportunity continues. Any transfer or sale must be to a higher education institution of equal or greater academic standing than Penn State. Anything less would permanently diminish the value of our students’ degrees, the livelihoods of our faculty, and would be an abandonment of the surrounding communities that have sustained Mont Alto for generations.
I hope we can all come together around that shared goal of putting students first. Whether we’re talking about saving the campus or ensuring it’s repurposed responsibly, the priority should be protecting our students education, mental health and sense of belonging. I’m also willing to help coordinate the next steps, whether that’s drafting a statement, plan or proposal that reflects those shared values.
