Commonwealth System of Higher Education

The Commonwealth System of Higher Education is a statutory designation by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that confers "state-related" status on four universities in Pennsylvania: Lincoln University, the Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh. The designation establishes the schools as an "instrumentality of the commonwealth"^[1] and provides each university with annual, non-preferred^[2] financial appropriations in exchange offering tuition discounts to students who are residents of Pennsylvania and a minority state-representation on each school's board of trustees.

The universities remain legally separate and private entities, operating under their own charters, governed by independent boards of trustees, and with assets under their own ownership and control, thereby retaining much of the freedom and individuality of private institutions, both administratively and academically.^[3] It is the only public-private hybrid system of higher education of its particular type in the United States, although other schools, such as Cornell University, the University of Delaware, and Rutgers University,^[4] also have public-private partnerships of their own kind.^[5]

Because their annual state allocations account for less than 10% of their budgets, universities in the Commonwealth System tend to have higher tuition costs compared to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education which contains 10 state-owned and operated universities. Because of their independence, universities in the Commonwealth System are exempted from Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law except for a few minor provisions.^[6]