While PHEAA officials played, students racked up college loans

Wednesday, March 14, 2007
There's something unseem ly about government offi cials and their spouses living it up at posh resorts, where most of us will never set foot, on money derived from college student loans.

Most of those students will be spending a decade or more paying back the money they borrowed for an overpriced college education, often with great difficulty.

Meanwhile, the elected and appointed bigwigs from the state agency created to help Pennsylvania youngsters get a solid start on their careers are drinking away at the open bar, relaxing under the hands of the masseuse and going aloft in hot-air bal loons.

Executives and board members of the Pennsyl vania Higher Education Assistance Agency claim that such ex cesses are necessary to work the stu dent-loan business to the advantage of Pennsylvania taxpayers and students. But only PHEAA apologists could possibly believe that spending $862,288 on eight retreats for the agency's higher ups between 2000 and 2005 somehow benefited student borrowers.

PHEAA went to court to prevent Patriot-News staff writer Jan Murphy and reporters from two other news organizations from examining its expense records. It released those records this month only under orders from the state Supreme Court.

It's easy to see why they didn't want them to be made public.

Resource: http://www.pennlive.com