The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency says "the national and Pennsylvania student aid marketplace is intensely competitive , so if we're going to be able to compete against the best and brightest, we have to attract and retain the best and brightest."

Nevertheless, the lump-sum bonuses of more than $100,000 awarded in July to each of the agency's top seven executives are excessive and certainly of no benefit to the students PHEAA is supposed to be helping.

It's certainly open to debate whether PHEAA executives should be the highest-paid state government officials, as they now are. The total compensation of Richard Willey, PHEAA president and chief executive officer, is more than 2½ times the annual $155,572 salary of Gov. Ed Rendell.

According to the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Willey received the largest bonus of the seven in question - $163,964 - making his total compensation $437,603.

Six executive vice presidents, each of whom is paid a $206,241 salary, received bonuses ranging from $101,610 to $103,518, according to agency records.

The newspaper reported that 15 other executives received bonuses ranging from $19,246 to $35,913.

The bonuses come as the House Appropriations Committee has begun examining PHEAA finances and spending. The agency's executive salaries are paid by earnings from PHEAA's student-loan business and related services.

Those are public funds, and the public has a right to know what's happening within PHEAA - and to express opinions based upon that information.

To many Pennsylvania residents, it is disturbing that this information comes at a time when widespread outrage still is being vented over big pay raises that the General Assembly approved for itself and other state officials. To those state residents, the current relevant question is: When will there be an end to such troubling money decisions emanating from Harrisburg?