The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) was asked to conduct the review, gather data and produce a report.

This report, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Strategic System Review Findings & Recommendations, published in July 2017, identified two critical problems: declining state funding and demographic decline, as Pennsylvania's citizens increasingly trended older.

[6] It also identified numerous issues troubling the system that were consequences of Act 188, the law passed in 1982 that formed PASSHE.

Notably, this plan stressed that there were, in its view, some options that would be ill-advised, and fail to address and possibly worsen the core issues.

"[7] On July 1, 2020, Act 50 of 2020[8] was signed into law, which granted the Board Of Governors authority to develop a procedure to "create, expand, consolidate, transfer or affiliate an institution".

The Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) of University of Massachusetts Amherst published a report which shared the Impacts of the PASSHE Redesign and Consolidation.

The report titled "The Economic Impact of the PASSHE Employment Reeducations"[12] highlighted how the "cuts, amounting to 14 percent of overall PASSHE employment..." and these cuts were "equivalent to the largest private-sector plant closings and mass layoffs of the previous decade in Pennsylvania.

"[12] On April 23, 2021, the Board of Governors approved the proposed west and northeast integration plans, and initiated a 60-day comment period.

The name was to enter use on July 1, 2022, pending approval by The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which accredits the university.

[24] In late April 2022, the NCAA announced that it would allow Division II sports to remain as separate teams at the three campuses and compete against each other.