Students, faculty head to Harrisburg for annual ‘Pitt Day’

HARRISBURG — University of Pittsburgh students, faculty, and alumni boarded buses early Tuesday morning to travel from Oakland to the state capital for the annual Pitt Day in Harrisburg.

Their goal: to make sure their thoughts, ideas, and requests are heard by state lawmakers.

“It’s a chance for [them] to talk to legislators, let them know what we do, let them know about the successes, about the impact Pitt has in everybody’s district,” said Paul Supowitz, Pitt’s vice chancellor for community and governmental relations.

The group from Oakland was joined by repsentatives from Pitt’s Greensburg and Bradford campuses.

It was the first time in two years that students were able to meet face-to-face with elected leaders.

“This is important because we’re all very passionate about the university, but of course, there’s a lot of help that we could get from our local government,” said Pitt senior Harshitha Ramanan, who is also the student government board president.

Among the topics discussed by students and legislators was funding for the school.

Currently, state funding provides a $15,000/year discount on tuition to in-state Pitt students.

But as tuition costs continue to rise, students want to make sure that discount will grow at the same rate.

“To ensure that the rising cost of tuition is sort of combatted with state funding,” said Ramanan.

In Governor Wolf’s budget proposal for the fiscal year ahead, Pitt is slated for a 5% increase in funding.

In addition to tuition assistance, students hope that added money goes toward essential needs like infrastructure.

“We are a growing campus and that means we need bigger classrooms, better technology, and the University of Pittsburgh is one of the older universities on this side of the coast,” said Ramanan.

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