Noe Ortega, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, in testimony Tuesday in the school funding trial, said that when he first came to the state’s department of education in 2017 to lead its higher education division, Pennsylvania was behind the curve: It was "one of a handful of states” that lacked a goal for post-secondary attainment.
Post-secondary education – both college and industry training – has many positive impacts, Ortega said: an increase in lifetime earnings, civic engagement, and positive health outcomes.
But Ortega testified that Pennsylvania has deep disparities in post-secondary attainment between low-income students and their wealthier peers – and between students of color and their white peers, in post-secondary attainment.
Ortega’s testimony focused on his previous work on these issues as the deputy secretary for the office of post-secondary and higher education at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. He transitioned into the top role in the department in 2020.
Pennsylvania’s State Board of Education did set a goal in 2018 of 60% of the working age adults, between 25 and 64, attaining some formal post-secondary credential by 2025, such as an associate’s or bachelor’s degree or an industry certification.
The department determined this goal, Ortega said, by studying Pennsylvania’s workforce needs – the number of jobs that would require a post-secondary credential of some kind. Right now, Pennsylvania is about 10 percentage points short of the goal, he said, and there are significant disparities between low-income and high-income students, and students of color and white students.
According to National Student Clearinghouse data used by the department, 21% of economically disadvantaged students in the class of 2013 earned a college degree within six years of graduating from high school – compared to 52% of students who are not economically disadvantaged and 42% of students as a whole.
In the class of 2011, 20% of Black students and 21% of Hispanic students earned a degree within six years–less than half the 46% rate of their white peers.
Ortega said that Pennsylvania’s system for funding public education plays a role in these disparities – and that it would be difficult to overcome these disparities without increased state investment in public education.
Additional funding would allow for greater increases in college attainment, Ortega said, and this is “especially true” for economically disadvantaged students and students of color.
Court recessed after Ortega’s testimony. Upcoming witnesses this week include two scholars who specialize in the economics of education: Dr. Clive Belfield of Queens College, City University of New York, and Dr. Rucker Johnson of the University of California at Berkeley.