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Daniel Greenstein has announced he will be stepping down as chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) in October.
Greenstein has been in the role since September 2018, after previously leading the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work on postsecondary education and serving as vice provost for academic planning and programs for the University of California.
During his tenure at PASSHE, Greenstein worked to improve affordability and financial sustainability across the system. In 2021 he oversaw the consolidation of six PASSHE campuses into two multicampus institutions, reducing the total number of colleges in the system from 14 to 10.
He also sought to tackle affordability in a state awash with higher education institutions through a series of tuition freezes.
“Price matters a lot, and differentiating based on affordability matters now more than ever. That’s something we’re trying to focus on.” Greenstein told Inside Higher Ed in 2023.
He is largely credited for improving relations with state legislators and increasing state funding in higher education. His cost-cutting consolidation project was rewarded with a budget increase of 16 percent in 2022, the largest the system had ever received. The state’s 2024–25 budget also includes a 6 percent increase for PASSHE institutions.
In a letter to students, faculty and staff, Greenstein wrote that “a significant amount of good, critical, and undoubtedly hard work is yet to be done” for the state’s higher education system.
“At the same time,” he wrote, “U.S. higher education is struggling—at any number of levels, in any number of ways. The risks are profound. The crises are real. And the students—the people—that I care about the most are in danger of being left further behind. So, when a compelling opportunity presented itself to work nationally, I had to take it seriously.”
Speaking at an unrelated press conference, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro said Greenstein had done “an outstanding job.”
In a press release, Cynthia Shapira, chair of the PASSHE Board of Governors, said Greenstein “is passionate about higher education, he is passionate about student success, and we are a better system today because of his leadership.”
Greenstein said he will give more information about his next steps in September.
