{"id":299158,"date":"2025-10-13T05:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299158\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T05:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:45:10","slug":"new-penn-executive-vice-president-discusses-universitys-financial-future-amid-federal-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299158\/","title":{"rendered":"New Penn executive vice president discusses University\u2019s financial future amid federal pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"10-08-25-mark-dingfield-ebunoluwa-adesida\"\/
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark Dingfield has served as the University\u2019s executive vice president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Ebunoluwa Adesida<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Two months since joining Penn\u2019s central administration as executive vice president, Mark Dingfield sat down with The Daily Pennsylvanian to discuss the stability of the University\u2019s finances, research infrastructure, and governance in the face of federal uncertainty.\n<\/p>\n

Dingfield began his term<\/a> as Penn\u2019s chief financial officer in August, after serving as the University\u2019s vice president of finance and treasurer for almost three years. He described his new role as an effort to maintain the University\u2019s momentum \u2014 a mission that requires flexibility amid an evolving landscape of federal policies and financial stress.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy for an institution that\u2019s been around as long as we have to do the same things in the same way for decades,\u201d Dingfield said. \u201cWe let things work the same way for a decade, we figure out that they don\u2019t work as well, we do a large project to try to fix it, and then, we wait another decade.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Dingfield highlighted the \u201cneed to be constantly adapting\u201d as essential to Penn\u2019s identity<\/a> as an \u201cimperfect but self-improving\u201d institution. He pointed to the University\u2019s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of how moments of crisis can accelerate innovation.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a horrible time for many reasons, but also as an institution, it allowed us to work \u2026 on a set of shared goals that we rarely had to respond to that quickly,\u201d Dingfield said. \u201cThe lesson I took from that was we as a University actually can respond to things in a coordinated way.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

He added that Penn \u201cmight be able to replicate\u201d that approach in response to other constraints, including the potential loss of federal research funding.\n\t<\/p>\n

According to Dingfield, Penn\u2019s administration \u201chas been pretty principled\u201d while handling new policies from the White House. He emphasized Penn President Larry Jameson\u2019s attempts to mitigate funding uncertainty by \u201cgain[ing] efficiencies in areas that don\u2019t affect students or \u2026 faculty.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In July, Jameson announced Penn\u2019s settlement<\/a> with the Department of Education over Title IX violations. Following the University\u2019s compliance, the federal government released $175 million in previously frozen federal funding.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done a really good job \u2026 both trying to prepare and respond to federal policies in a way that preserves our core mission, including the services and support we provide to students,\u201d Dingfield continued.\n<\/p>\n

He pointed to Penn\u2019s expanded financial aid initiative \u2014 the Quaker Commitment \u2014 as evidence of the durability of University-wide priorities despite financial insecurity. The new policy<\/a> removed the value of a family\u2019s primary home when calculating financial aid eligibility and raised the income threshold for families eligible to receive full-tuition scholarships from $140,000 to $200,000 with typical assets.\n<\/p>\n

Dingfield led the charge for expanded financial aid during his previous role and described the impact as \u201cdramatic\u201d among students.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve started to get the first year of data back, [and] we have about 660 students who have benefited from the two major changes that we made with the Quaker Commitment,\u201d he said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

He also mentioned his hope to \u201cfurther expand the affordability of a Penn tuition\u201d despite the possibility of a federal endowment tax and other external pressures.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that the headline sticker price gets a lot of attention out there in the media, but I think we really have to do a better job communicating,\u201d Dingfield said. \u201cRoughly 50% of our students get financial aid, and those packages are becoming increasingly generous, so the net price after financial aid is actually decreasing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In addition to maintaining student programs, Dingfield underscored the stability of Penn Medicine and research infrastructure as key to developing the University\u2019s response to federal action.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a single legal and financial entity \u2014 the health system and the academic component together \u2014 but we operate our finances fairly independently from one another,\u201d he said. \u201cThat being said, policies that affect the health system have effects on the University.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Dingfield reiterated that funding losses, including \u201ca major cut to Medicaid or other areas of support,\u201d require close monitoring and \u201cconversation with the health system leadership.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

He added that \u201coutside credit rating agencies also look at [Penn and Penn Med] as one single entity,\u201d meaning that \u201cif the health system or the University is not performing well \u2026 it affects our ability to borrow at certain rates.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

According to Dingfield, this poses a challenge for the University, which frequently borrows from the debt market to ensure \u201csufficient cash and liquidity to support our ongoing operations\u201d during times of financial uncertainty.\n<\/p>\n

Regarding Penn\u2019s \u201cresearch enterprise,\u201d Dingfield also addressed the facilities and administrative rate Penn receives on sponsored research, which sustains \u201cbuilding operation and maintenance costs\u201d along with \u201cthe people that support \u2026 clinical trials or environmental health and radiation safety.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIf [the facilities and administrative<\/a> rate] were to be diminished significantly, it would affect our ability to pay for those services and that infrastructure at the same level that we do today,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

In February, the National Institutes of Health implemented a 15% cap on indirect F&A costs<\/a>, with the potential to cost Penn $240 million. While a judge temporarily halted the changes following a lawsuit brought by Penn and 12 other universities against the NIH, University researchers have continued to describe research difficulties.\n<\/p>\n

Soon after, Jameson wrote<\/a> to the Penn community to describe the threat of the funding cap.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tSign up for our newsletter<\/p>\n

Get our newsletter, DP Daybreak, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn periods of uncertainty, the importance of communicating more actually increases,\u201d Dingfield said. \u201cAbsent hearing from University leaders about what is known and what is unknown can increase the anxiety about how we\u2019re responding to it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

He also reflected on Penn\u2019s historical ability to successfully emerge from \u201cperiod of real financial distress.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not what are we going to do for the next six months or even the next 12 months,\u201d Dingfield said. \u201cIt\u2019s how do we make sure that \u2014 over the next five, 10, 20 years \u2014 we are putting ourselves in a position to be even stronger as an institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation<\/a> to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.<\/p>\n

Donate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Dingfield has served as the University\u2019s executive vice president.\u00a0 Credit: Ebunoluwa Adesida Two months since joining Penn\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":299159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[23234,8431,5672,5229,8432,50,1448,2830,1311,80,11027,1399,277,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-299158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-academic-research","9":"tag-academics-faculty","10":"tag-administration","11":"tag-america","12":"tag-beats","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pa","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-philadelphia","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-studentlife","19":"tag-top","20":"tag-trump","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115365277197445326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}