Feds Ask PHEAA to Repay $15 Million

January 28th, 2008, posted by Greg Palmer

The federal government is asking Pennsylvania’s student loan agency to repay as much as $15 million that officials say it overcharged for loan subsidies.

The U.S. Department of Education outlined its request in a letter to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency on Friday, two months after the department’s inspector general released an audit of the PHEAA subsidies.

The audit determined that PHEAA was overpaid $35 million in federal subsidies between July 2003 and June 2006 — 13 percent of the more than $263 million it received during that period. But the department ultimately did not accept all the audit’s findings, Patricia Trubia of the Federal Student Aid office wrote in her letter to PHEAA.

Filed under:

DoE is finally catching on...

On January 28th, 2008 Greg Palmer said:

The federal Department of Education is finally catching on to these overcharges, which originated from lenders around the country. The interesting angle with PHEAA, at least to me, is that it is essentially a public trust for the citizens of Pennsylvania. When it commits financial shenanigans, from excessive bonuses to overcharging fees, it does it in the name of all Pennsylvanians. I think we should expect a higher standard.

shameful

On January 28th, 2008 Anonymous said:

PHEAA has accomplished a lot for the students of Pennsylvania, but just imagine how much more we could and SHOULD be getting out of this public trust if it were managed properly. When you consider the ever increasing cost of higher education, any squandering of funds is a direct failure to our students.