PHEA: from notability to notoriety

Second Place

Editorial/Column

Division 1

PHEA: from notability to notoriety

Taylor Bundy

Grade 11

Intelligencer Journal

Manheim Township HS

Adviser: Claudia Esbenshade

Financial aid is often the foundation of a college student’s journey through higher learning. Scholarships, grants, and loans are all integral aspects of the average undergraduate’s college search.

As a newly established high school junior, I am now beginning to get a glimpse of the impending expedition, most significantly through my own personal pursuit of college scholarships.

The quest for financial aid, presenting itself as a daunting task with an equally rewarding outcome, may perhaps experience a tip of the scales past tediousness and toward the realm of corruption and hypocrisy.

The recently exposed Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency scandal demonstrates not everyone necessarily practices what he or she preaches.

Since 1963, PHEAA gained its claim to fame as Pennsylvania’s leading provider of financial aid for college students. Spanning more than four decades, the organization has assisted scores of students with loans and monetary support.

Now, almost half a century later, that very same so-called support seems to have bred similar scandal. PHEAA is reported to have spent approximately $900,000 on luxury, whether it takes the shape of extended stays in extravagant hotels, five-star dining, chartered flights or even gourmet cooking classes.

Just company benefits? I think not.

In addition to through-the-roof spending on needless indulgences, PHEAA has coughed up an estimated $400,000 in legal fees withing the past year and a half, according to the news station The Pittsburgh Channel’s online Web site, thepittsburghchannel.com, all for the sake of hushing up the scandal, which was clearly to no avail.

So let’s do the math. Four hundred thousand dollars plus $900,000 equals more than a million dollars; 1.3 million dollars to be exact. The average college tuition for Pennsylvania private-school student totally $25,591 for one year, implying that for a four year study, costs would even out at approximately $102,364, according to a Nov. 13, 2006, issue of the Tartan, Carnegie Mellon’s student newspaper.

As that statistic was recorded in 2006, it is unquestionable that, seeing how college costs are perpetually on the rise, the average Pennsylvania tuition is significantly higher almost a year later.

Simple arithmetic indicates that 1.3 million divided by 100,000 results in a solution of 13. Thirteen lucky college students could have has their entire four-year tuition written off it weren’t for the transgressions committed by the members of PHEAA.

Of course, it is unrealistic to assume that PHEAA is responsible for paying for all four years of school for every student assisted by the organization. Nonetheless, I would assume that more than a million dollars could put a dent in the costs of student loans for dozens of college undergraduates statewide.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste; this was is nothing short of terrible.