The question were asking officials is college affordable?
That was the topic of the House Education Committee’s visit to Penn State earlier Today
The House Education Committee heard from higher education leaders and experts about some of the problems that a lack of affordability at colleges across the Commonwealth causes, such as problems in the workforce
According to the Department Of Education there are more than 43 million Americans with student loan debt, totalling more than 1.6 trillion dollars. Earlier today the Pa House Education Committee held a hearing to discuss the impacts the high tuition costs have.
“It costs a lot of money to go to college, is it going to be worth it, now you can’t boil down the value of a college degree only to dollars and cents, but for more and more people in the Commonwealth, it becomes a really big and deciding question.”
Dr. Kate Shaw is the Deputy Secretary and Commissioner for Higher Education and was one of the people who provided testimony for the committee. She says the average debt for someone in the Commonwealth after completing a 4-year degree is $40,000 dollars.
“When will they be able to afford to buy a car, when can they buy a house, when can they afford to start a family, people with large debt loads are typically delayed in all of those things and they also have less buying power which means they are putting less money back into the economy.”
She says the State just passed a financial aid package of more than $140 million dollars. Penn State Student President Zion Sykes also spoke before the education committee on Tuesday. He says he wouldn’t be getting ready to graduate in may if it weren’t for various scholarships that allowed him to afford it.
“When I applied to college I was homeless, I was bouncing around between hotels and different friends’ places, it was rough.”
He says more than 30% of students at Penn State struggle with food or housing insecurity
“Having people from across the State who run that Committee, who are setting the agenda for what gets brought onto that house floor, and what will dictate the future of education, I think that it means so much but I also think that it should be the standard.”
