Spanier: Scores of Penn State Job Losses Projected from Funding Cut - Adam Smeltz, StateCollege.com

The College of Agricultural Sciences will feel acute pain in its agricultural-research and Cooperative Extension areas, Spanier said. That's because those public-service operations rely almost exclusively on state money and cannot draw from tuition revenue for supplemental funding, administrators have said. Spanier said the job losses in the agricultural college, to be "announced and worked through within weeks," will number in the dozens. "The longer it takes, the longer we postpone getting to the savings. At the same time, we're trying to be very fair to our employees and come up with ways to help them find other positions, severance, health benefits," he said. "These are good people who work hard and really care." Overall Penn State job losses stemming from the state-funding cuts will include direct layoffs and positions lost to attrition, Spanier said. Although the complete tally will climb into the scores, he said, he expects it will not reach as high as 600. (Penn State employs more than 17,000 people statewide.)