Aug. 29—Drexel University is withdrawing from the SEPTA Key Advantage program that gives faculty and staff steep discounts on all-access transportation passes, citing a "significant increase in cost" of providing the benefit.
The university's human resources department told Drexel employees of the decision about 5 p.m. Monday in an email. It takes effect Oct. 1.
"We have been working until the last minute to negotiate more favorable terms ... unfortunately, with no success," the email said. "Please know that we explored every avenue to keep this benefit intact in a fiscally responsible way for the university."
The move comes as Drexel, like many other universities, is facing a budget crunch, with net tuition revenue down and enrollment still uncertain in part because of ongoing problems with federal financial aid forms.
Employees expressed frustration, and several noted on social media that Drexel spent $3.1 million for the five-year right to have its name on the 30th Street SEPTA station, wondering why that was considered affordable but discounted transit passes for staff were not.
"This change was rolled out with minimal time for folks to update their budgets," said Jacqueline Barker, associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at Drexel's School of Medicine. She said that will be a particular burden on the master's and doctoral students she trains in her lab, who are considered staff and eligible for the benefit.
They rely on mass transit "and have either low or no cost-of-living stipends," Barker said.
Drexel said in the message that its costs had risen 46% in the two years it has offered Key Advantage. The university declined to disclose what it pays per pass or its overall spending on the program. Drexel had been charging employees $20 a month as a copayment for the transit passes, workers said.
That was still a relative bargain for the staff. The normal retail price for an "Anywhere" pass — allowing rides on any SEPTA service, including Regional Rail — is $204 a month.
Drexel said it will continue to offer a commuter benefit that allows employees to pay for mass transit or parking by setting aside money before federal taxes are withheld from their salaries.
Drexel, Penn Medicine and Wawa were the first employers to join the program when SEPTA launched it in March 2022 to help attract riders to return to public transit after the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the program, SEPTA sells all-you-can-travel "Anywhere" passes in bulk to employers, who provide them at no cost for the first six months to workers who sign up; prices are adjusted every six months after that to account for usage, SEPTA says.
According to its contracts with employers, SEPTA won't raise the price by more than 10% at a time, the agency says. Employers are allowed to charge a copayment after the initial free period.
Key Advantage has since been expanded to 55 participating employers, with 95,000 workers. SEPTA says the program has generated a monthly average of 1.1 million trips on the system for the first six months of 2024.
So far, no other employers have indicated they want to withdraw from the program, SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch said.
In a statement, SEPTA thanked Drexel for its more than two years of participation and expressed regret at the decision.
The transit agency, however, has "a fiduciary duty to ensure that it is collecting revenue commensurate with ridership, and therefore, pricing is recalculated every six months based upon employee enrollment and usage," the statement said. "A successful program — with an increase in enrolled employees and employees taking more SEPTA trips — will result in that pricing going up."
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