by KYW's Steve Tawa
US senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) was on the campus of Temple University on Monday, getting feedback from students and experts about overhauling college financial aid programs, including boosting the amount allocated for "Pell" grants for needy students.
Adalena Baxter, a senior at Cheyney University, said she is grateful for the grants and loans she's received, but they aren't enough to cover expenses:
"I have found it difficult to maintain a 3.2 GPA as a fulltime student while working over 40 hours a week with two jobs."
Experts in higher education also testified about alarming increases in tuition in the last three decades.
Andrew Gillen is with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, DC:
"Tuition as a percentage of median household income more than doubled at four-year colleges, to about 12 percent at public schools and 43 percent at private colleges."
Tony Wagner, Temple's chief financial officer, says the burden of funding public universities has shifted dramatically from the state to the student:
"In 1972, Temple received about 60 percent of its operating funds from state appropriations. That number today is about 20 percent."
Wagner says that as that burden has shifted, so has the debt that students take on -- with undergraduate students incurring an average of $30,000 in debt to complete their degrees.
(Photo by KYW's Steve Tawa)
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