Higher Education

Publicly funded colleges in Pennsylvania are essential to realizing the American Dream. Public colleges and state-related universities account for 65% of social mobility success stories of students who enter college from families with incomes in the bottom 60% but each have an income in the top 40% of their own by their early 30s.

We also need to make college education accessible to create thriving communities with high wages. Not everyone needs to go to college. But when more adults have a college education, economic growth is greater and wages for everyone are higher.

Pennsylvania is 40th of 50 states in the percentage of adults with more than a high school education.

There is great regional variation in the percent of the adult population with more than a high school education. In 35 Pennsylvania counties—more than half of the 67 in the state—the share of adults with more than a high school education is lower than the average for all 50 states. (For example, in West Virginia as a whole, 48.1% of adults have more than a high school education.) The counties in Pennsylvania with a higher percentage of adults with more than a high school education are also those that tend to have increasing population, faster economic growth, and higher wages.

Our dismal standing with regard to education attainment is largely the result of the state’s low level of investment in higher education Pennsylvania ranks 47th out of 50 states for per capita investment in higher education. This results in higher tuition and fees for students as well as more hardship for families.

Not only is state support for public universities and colleges in Pennsylvania low, but it has been declining sharply in the last 30 years. Since 1982-83, It has fallen by almost half relative to the Gross State Product.

The result of reduced state funding for education is that tuition increased 66% in public and state-related universities in Pennsylvania between 2000-01 and 2015-16.

High state college tuition is one factor leading to high levels of student loan debt. Between 2000-01 and 2015-16, the median student loan debt increased an average of 27% in public and state-related universities. LendEDU ranked Pennsylvania number one in the nation in terms of highest student debt (https://lendedu.com/blog/student-loan-debt-statistics-by-school-by-state-2017.)

Pennsylvania Promise would significantly decrease the cost of college and would ensure our public universities can continue to be strong engines of upward mobility.