Temple University holds two commitments that are increasingly difficult to sustain simultaneously: serving as Pennsylvania’s affordable urban public university and competing as a research-intensive R1. Commonwealth appropriations have held flat at $158.2 million for seven consecutive years while enrollment has fallen from 40,240 to 29,503 students, erasing roughly $200 million in annual gross tuition revenue.

The result is an institution financing affordability from its own balance sheet, repositioning around research credibility and graduate markets, and treating campus safety as a financial variable rather than an operations problem. The case study examines the strategic logic behind each of those moves, the business model exposure underneath them, and what the model implies for urban public universities navigating the same structural pressures.

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