3.0
Jan 27, 2026
Current employee, more than 3 years
State College, PA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Good colleagues (depends on the department). Affordable cost of living. Good location if you love the outdoors. Students are generally nice and if you look hard you can find highly capable and motivated ones.
Cons
Extremely bureaucratic. Based on public pay data, I think we are paid less than peer state flagship universities. Penn State is also multiple hours away from big cities like Pittsburgh or Philly, so if you are a city person or have a partner outside of academia, this can be quite a large negative.