STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State is offering voluntary buyouts to campus employees in an effort to deal with rapidly declining enrollment at its branch campuses across the state.
The university calls them the Commonwealth Campuses, including Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, and Schuylkill.
Enrollment at those campuses statewide is down 20 percent since 2016.
The buyout is being offered to faculty, staff, and administrators at those campuses only, not the main campus.
It includes a year of salary and six months of health care.
The university says forced layoffs could come depending on the result of these voluntary buyouts.
Earlier this year, the president of Penn State University proposed a budget that slashes funding for the university's branch campuses.