Time to put PHEAA up for sale
Editorial on PHEAA from The Valley Independent:
"While the concept of placing the agency in the hands of a private, for-profit company might seem - considering the whole PROFIT aspect - to be nonsensical, the idea unfortunately makes too much sense."
Read on as to why...
3 comments:
People do not enter public service because of a desire to earn as much as money, but at the same time we need to compensate people accordingly to ensure we have competent and competitive public servants. However, this PHEAA debacle is outrageous, and what would even be more absurd is to assume that this incident is the first of its kind. This type of activity constantly goes unnoticed and it is the ease by which such actions are undetectable which disturbs me. With powerhouse PHEAA and their board of legislators, I mean directors, we can be certain little consequence will ensue. Let us be proactive and prevent these occurrences; we need to dive into ways to hold PHEAA – and groups alike – accountable. The IRS has its plate full and Rendell is still trying to stand on his head to lower property taxes.
Anyone who has loans with the Federal programs knows a major caution in the idea of selling to PHEA to a private party - Sallie Mae has sold my info to so many people it probably generates 1/3 of my junk mail. Their collectors are beyond rude in the one time period between jobs when payments were late, and their is zero accountability for anything they do. Too often when some government function gets off track some people want to sell it into the private sector rather than fix it by changing leadership or cleaning up its statuatory foundation. The current board could be the problem and not the program itself. All this noise about selling seems based on legitimate outrage over spending on the top people and board plus a desire for a one-time windfall to cover other state spending not paid for properly. IF the program is less efficient then selling may make sense. If selling is just about politics it is the wrong answer.
PHEAA works, but the oversight of this entity needs to be revisited. Attending college is a choice and an investment, and PHEAA helped me finance my college education. One recommendation: not only should PHEAA make education more accessible to individuals, but it should start looking into ways to lower the interest it collects on those students that successfully graduate from undergraduate facilities.
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