Gov. Wolf To Speak At Bucks Co. School Wednesday

FAIRLESS HILLS, PA — Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf will visit a Bucks County high school on Wednesday to discuss a plan to help students afford college.

Wolf will be speaking with students and parents at Pennsbury High School West in Fairless Hills at 10 a.m. According to his office, the topic will be what Wolf calls the student loan debt crisis and a proposal that he says would help thousands of students attend a state-owned university.

He'll be pushing his proposal for what he's calling the Nellie Bly Scholarship. The plan would close the gap after a student's Pell Grant and other state grants are already spent and help keep Pennsylvania students from being saddled with debt, Wolf says.

It would be a $204 million, need-based scholarship and would apply to students who enroll full-time in one of the 14 Pennsylvania State System of High Education universities. Students would have to commit to live in Pennsylvania after graduation for the same number of years they received the scholarship.

If a student left the state early, they would have to repay the money.

The scholarship would be funded by repurposing money from the state's Horse Racing Development Fund.

The scholarship is named in honor of Nellie Bly, an Armstrong County native born in 1864. Bly attended the Indiana Normal School, now Indiana University of Pennsylvania, but left due to the cost. Bly became a pioneering journalist who helped to force reforms to the mental health care system in the early 20th century.

According to Wolf's office, the student loan debt for Pennsylvania residents is $68 billion, among the highest in the nation, averaging more than $37,000 per student.