Chancellor of Pa. state university system headed to international accounting and advisory firm

The chancellor of Pennsylvania’s state university system will leave in October to begin a new job at Baker Tilly, an international accounting and advisory firm that does a lot of work in the higher education sector, Baker Tilly announced Tuesday.

Daniel Greenstein, who had announced his impending departure in July, will join the company’s higher education advisory practice, focusing on “prioritizing improved student outcomes and long-term institutional sustainability by optimizing operations, aligning academic portfolios with market needs and effectively leveraging technology and data analytics,” the company said.

Greenstein, 64, said in an interview Tuesday that he was interested in working on a national platform.

“Probably about a year ago, it’s one of those sort of moments when you wake up in the middle of the night and realize, crap, I’m not the 28-year-old that I always think I am,” he said. “That coupled with the growing sense of urgency around higher education really kind of got me thinking.

“I believe in this industry. I can’t imagine a future without it, especially on the public side, and it’s in trouble and needs help. … And I want to help in whatever years remain to me.”

Greenstein, who has led the 10-university Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education since 2018, starts his new role Nov. 1. He said he will continue to live in Harrisburg and work out of the Philadelphia office.

» READ MORE: The chancellor of Pa.’ s state school system is leaving ‘to work nationally’

“Dan’s experience, visionary leadership and passion for advancing equity in education align perfectly with our mission to help our clients achieve student and institutional success,” said Vicki Hellenbrand, Baker Tilly’s managing principal of government and public services.

The system has done business with Baker Tilly, Greenstein said.

“They have a pretty big footprint in higher education generally,” he said, “a lot of it in audit and risk management.”

During his tenure, Greenstein, who was paid $485,030 annually, has been successful in getting increases in state funding for the system, most recently a 6% hike that boosted funding by $35 million, and developing working relationships with legislators on both sides of the aisle. In 2022, the system received an increase of more than 15%, equal to $75 million, in basic state funding, the largest one-time increase since the system was founded in 1983.

PASSHE notably has not had a tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students during Greenstein’s tenure as he hammered on the need to improve affordability. Fees have increased.

Greenstein has called the long-standing tuition freeze “the single most important thing we’ve done.”

Greenstein also oversaw the controversial merger of six of the system’s universities into two new entities as part of a system redesign and led PASSHE through the pandemic. But enrollment, which began to decline in 2010, has continued to slide under his watch, as has enrollment at many other universities in the region. The system enrolled about 102,000 students when he took over in 2018, and this past year, enrollment stood at 82,688.

The system has not released enrollment numbers for the current school year.

Greenstein came to PASSHE from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — the philanthropic organization that has doled out millions to spur improvement in higher education. He had been a senior adviser there and previously led the Seattle-based foundation’s post-secondary-success strategy for six years. A University of Pennsylvania graduate, he previously had served as a vice provost in the University of California system.

Pennsylvania’s state system includes Cheyney, West Chester, Shippensburg, East Stroudsburg, Kutztown, Millersville, Indiana, Slippery Rock, Commonwealth, and PennWest Universities.

Baker Tilly describes itself as an advisory, tax, and assurance firm, “providing clients with a genuine coast-to-coast and global advantage in major regions of the U.S. and in many of the world’s leading financial centers — New York, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston.”

Its higher education practice ranges from “effective risk management and innovative strategies to compliant fiscal reporting and operational controls,” the company said.