Advocacy Panelist Molly Stieber

Stieber

"[M]y high school, Manheim Township, was ranked among [the] top 500 public high schools in the country. Two consecutive valedictorians chose to attend Pitt, as well as numerous students in the top 10 percent of my graduating class. Once I officially decided on Pitt, I joined numerous Facebook groups, including one titled “What schools did you turn down to come to Pitt?” The list included, but was not limited to, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford. I can guarantee almost, if not all, of those students were residents of Pennsylvania, opting to choose a terrific university which grants them in-state tuition rather than choosing to acquire enormous debt upon graduating from a private Ivy League university. ...

Please remember, about 80 percent of undergraduates at Pitt are from the state of Pennsylvania. These students, as I have hopefully made you see, are not just Pennsylvania’s finest, but the country’s finest students."

—Molly Stieber

Stieber is president of Pitt’s Student Government Board.