Pennsylvania Governor Proposes Tuition Relief Plan To Assist College Students

Here are the details of Governor Rendell's Tuition Relief Act, which applies to Pennsylvanians who attend community colleges or state-owned universities.  Rendell has urged the General Assembly to approve his plan quickly so that it can assist students as early as this fall: 

• Everyone will pay something, but a student pays only what he or she can afford.
• Many families earning less than $32,000 a year will pay just $1,000 for tuition, fees, room, board and books.
• Every family that qualifies will receive thousands of dollars in tuition relief, and many will save as much as three-quarters of the total bill for tuition, fees, room, board and books.
• Families that do not qualify for PHEAA grants but who earn less than $100,000 a year also will benefit, more than doubling the number of State System students receiving state-funded financial aid grants. These families will receive a grant for half the cost of tuition -- about $2,700 in savings at the State System.

The Governor's plan also included funds to support community college students:

The Governor's budget also includes a $35 million increase in Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) tuition grants. This increase will dedicate $10 million to provide grants to nearly 10,000 additional community college students while ensuring that other college and university students do not lose their grants as a result of a reduction in contributions to student grants by PHEAA.

This provides another example of the pressure on politicians at the state level to address the credit crunch's impact on higher education.