Until recently, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency was a low-profile organization helping students finance college. In the past year, however, the agency has attracted unwanted attention with news that it has spent more than a million dollars in ways that have little to do with making college more affordable to Pennsylvania students.

More than a year ago, newspaper investigations revealed that the PHEAA board spent $860,000 on meetings at luxury resorts between 2000 and 2005. Then the agency spent $400,000 in an unsuccessful legal effort to keep its spending records secret.

Then, just over a month ago, the agency created more controversy when it paid out $570,000 in year-end bonuses to a handful of top PHEAAofficials.

For months there has been talk about the need to reform PHEAA, but it was only talk. Finally, change could be in the air now that PHEAA president and CEO, Richard Willey, has announced that he will retire at the end of the year.

Willey denied any connection between his plan to retire and the controversies that have been swirling around PHEAA. Willey's retirement will bring renewed attention on lavish benefits elsewhere in Harrisburg, because when he does step down, after 32 years of state employment, Willey will collect a pension of about $370,000 a year.

The largess at PHEAA, from pay to pensions to perks, is the result of actions by the board, more so than Willey. The 20-member board includes 16 state lawmakers, which helps explain why there is such an apparent disregard for spending controls and transparency.

Willey's retirement is welcome and creates an opportunity for change. Willey is not the only one creating bad press for PHEAA. A former PHEAAhead has raised eyebrows over his receiving a salary from a nonprofit foundation that he helped create at the same time he is collecting a state pension. Former agency chief executive Michael Hershock is reportedly receiving a $222,173 state pension while also being paid a $147,000 salary from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Foundation.

There is an obvious need for changing PHEAA and its board. Willey's $370,000 pension also reveals serious problems with the state's pension program. Something is very wrong when a state employee retires with such an extraordinarily lavish pension. Maybe this level of postretirement income is what state lawmakers were shooting for in 2001 when they voted to boost their own pensions by 50 percent, and raise the pensions of other state workers, including teachers, by 25 percent.

Too many state lawmakers and high-level managers, like Willey, demonstrate a total disregard for taxpayers. They are only concerned about their bank account and milking the system, which has become skewed in favor of those making the rules — state lawmakers — at the expense of those paying the bills — state taxpayers. This agency and the state's pension formulas are in desperate need of change.