I think the new color scheme is nice, but the contrast is way too low for the tiny, low-weight font they're using. A bold or larger text or increasing the contrast a little would make it work. To meet http://accessibility.psu.edu/contrasthtml they'll probably have to do all three.

I have to admit I liked the previous color scheme much more too. White / light blue background + gray text (~#4D). Why is it so popular to make low-contrast sites these days? It's inexplicable to me, other than just the designers' craving for change (yes it probably has all the contrast coefficients within the norms, but it doesn't mean this couldn't be made better).

Yeah its harder to read ^_^ and I think worse looking the old version.