<p>Lakeclouds, Say what you will, but the students do not seem to be suffering from the scandal in any way I have seen. The jobs and internships continue; the alumni network is at least as strong, if not stronger, than before. Applications, enrollment and gifts are all higher this year than last.</p>
<p>LakeCloud you are right. The Sandusky Scandal will be a stain on PSU’s record </p>
<p>BUT most people are smart enough to realize that with a fall 2011 enrollment of 96,519 students, tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of alumni very few Penn State people were involved with this mess. A recent article stated that enrollment for the class of 2016 is the highest in 6 years. Face facts.</p>
<p>What happened is and was horrible. Jail is too good for Sandusky. It is time to move on. Penn State alumni raised half a million dollars for abuse victims in the first month after news of the scandal broke. It is time to stop harping on the past and move forward in a positive way. Not forget, definitely not forget, but move on. </p>
<p>It is interesting that the CC thread on the Sandusky scandal has over 5000 comments yet when Penn State students do something spectacular like raise $10,686,924.83 in one year, over TEN MILLION dollars for children there is hardly any notice. The largest student-run philanthropy in the world and the media barely mentioned it. </p>
<p>We are Penn State proud because we know that this horrible event does not define us or our school.</p>
<p>@LakeClouds are you that ignorant? “Not great academics”? PSU was ranked as the 45th best university in the COUNTRY, out of the 3000 some odd colleges there are out there. Please, start explaining to me how that an abuse scandal related to no one in the academic departments is going to make the school just lose all of the academic prestige it also has. Richard Molls book on the public ivies has Penn State as a “worthy runner up” to just eight schools, not too shabby for a school with poor academics.</p>
<p>To be fair, LakeClouds has a valid argument. There will always be people out there that will look down upon Penn State (at least for a few years) for what has transpired. Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do about that. However, what we can do is make the most out of our experience at PSU and push ourselves even harder to get the most out of the many great opportunities that Penn State provides. With a massive alumni network, hundreds of majors to choose from, study abroad opportunities, internships, clubs, intramural sports, etc etc, there are thousands of ways to make yourself stand out from the pack and come out of college with an impressive resume and skillset to take on any job that you are aiming for. </p>
<p>When news of the scandal broke out, I was devastated and, for a period of time, seriously doubted attending PSU. However, as time passed and I looked at all of my options, I felt that Penn State gave me the best chance to succeed and have the most enjoyable college experience. Yes, the scandal was absolutely awful and yes, there will always be those that won’t look at Penn State the same. But all of the great things that Penn State has to offer allowed me to make my decision to attend PSU this fall one that I am not regretting in the slightest.</p>
<p>Only very narrow minded people will have a negative view of the University. Child abuse has to be stopped, but people have not stopped going to church, or dropped out of the Catholic church when priests have been convicted of child abuse. Penn State is a fabulous school, and I am proud that my son will be attending. As I mentioned previously, he turned down many noteworthy universities to attend Penn State.</p>
<p>The two people responsible for the cover-up are about to go to trial, including felony perjury. One had a recently discovered file in his office reportedly labeled “Sandusky Incidents”. However, everyone else can see beyond the inactions of a few people (including former Attorney General Corbett who was given full responsibility for the investigation and prosecution of Sandusky 3 years ago, but who never made any effort for almost 2 years to see if there were other victims). </p>
<p>Penn State’s main campus did see an increase in applications this year. If the U. was that “stained”, that number would have fallen. </p>
<p>The other piece of good news is that the Pa. Legislature refused to go along with Gov. Corbett’s plan to do a second round of slashing of the budget of Penn State and other public universities in Pa. State funding to Penn State will be level for the next year.</p>
<p>The pa legislature refuting the budget cuts is great news, charlieschm! Do you have a link for this?</p>
<p>Today’s Phila. Inquirer article. The budget is expected to have final approval in a couple days.
[Highlights</a> of proposed $27.7 billion Pa. budget](<a href=“http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20120627_ap_highlightsofproposed277billionpabudget.html]Highlights”>http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20120627_ap_highlightsofproposed277billionpabudget.html)</p>
<p>The legislature refused to go along with the Governor’s plan for drastic cuts to public universities. Activism does work.</p>
<p>Lakeclouds: why did the amount of applications received by PSU increase by 2%? Its because the academics at Penn State has nothing to do with what happened. Penn State still remains a public ivy, it still remains to be one of the most challenging schools in the country and the world. People (at least properly educated people) will know that Penn State is still a great school.</p>
<p>PSU will bounce back, not that it has ever been down. People move on. The shooting at Virginia Tech had people asking the same types of questions five years ago.</p>
<p>I really wish we could “like” these posts. :)</p>
<p>Howard Stern? You’re kidding, right?</p>
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<p>@PortMom - as a matter of fact many people left the Catholic church for good after the sexual abuse scandel. The church in my town was closed as were others because money was needed to pay victims.</p>
<p>^ The church still has over a billion members. And I’m one of them btw</p>
<p>With the release of the Freeh Report, the answer to the OPs question has to be a resounding YES.</p>
<p>LakeClouds - I am so glad you are not a Penn State student.</p>
<p>I think LakeClouds is actually a “grownup”.</p>
<p>I think PSU as an academic institution will still remain an excellent university in the present and near future. However, if the violations of the Clery Act result in federal fines or withholding of federal funding or funding for students loans, that could have an impact beyond the football program. Likewise, the expected civil suits will impact PSU, which will likely pay out millions in civil settlements. This could impact PSU’s coffers, which could affect budget, salaries, etc etc.</p>
<p>I work in software engineering and sometimes I am called upon to help with recruiting. As far as I know, Joe Paterno nor Jerry Sandusky knew NOTHING about data structures, operating systems or database systems…nor had any effect on the Engineering or Computer Science or Math departments.</p>
<p>Therefore, that scandal has absolutely no bearing on Penn State grads applying for jobs.</p>
<p>…at least while I am in the decision-making process.</p>
<p>Thank you, GLOBALTRAVELER. As I said previously, every one of the graduates in my S’s engineering program had at least one job offer in May.</p>