The following is a transcript of a report by Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons that first aired Aug. 1, 2007, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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Big bonuses for state House employees in Harrisburg made headlines earlier this year and taxpayers are still upset about it.

Now, a Team 4 investigation found millions in bonuses are being handed out at PHEAA, the state student loan agency.

PHEAA is the same agency that WTAE Channel 4 had to go to court with in order to get spending records for state legislators at posh PHEAA retreats.

About 300 PHEAA employees got bonuses this year, totaling $2.5 million. Most of that money went to the top executives at the state's student loan agency.

Critics said that money could have and should have been given to more than 500 college students in the form of state grants.

PHEAA CEO Dick Willey's salary is $289,000 with a bonus of $179,000. That's 62 percent of his regular pay for a grand total of $469,000.

PHEAA Chief Financial Officer Tim Guenther's salary is $217,000 with a bonus of $112,000 or 51 percent of his regular wage for a total paycheck of $330,000.

And there were plenty of others.

About 25 PHEAA employees got bonuses of $10,000 or more, and 280 employees had salary and bonuses that topped $80,000.

PHEAA has long maintained that it's not a typical government agency, that because it's in the business of giving out student loans and has competitors in private industry, it has to act like a private business.

"When we want to fund more benefits here, we have to make more money in the marketplace," said PHEAA vice president of communications Keith New.

But the U.S. Student Association, based in Washington, D.C., said there's a troubling reason business is so good for PHEAA and other lenders.

"We're living in an environment where education has become a commodity," said Gabriel Pendas of the U.S. Student Association. "And people are turning our universities and our colleges and our public school system into a business, and that's just not OK. This is supposed to be for the educational public good."

PHEAA refuses to disclose the specific reasons it handed out $2.5 million in bonuses this year.

When Team 4 requested a copy of PHEAA's executive management incentive compensation policy, the agency redacted the part about performance measures, claiming that information is a trade secret.

Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons tried to find out more.

Parsons: "How does the public know whether or not Dick Willey really earned a $179,000 bonus last year?"

New: "Look at the fact that we're giving $220 million back to the public this year."

Parsons: "Well, how do we know specifically what the benchmarks were for coming up with that $180,000? Why didn't he get $250 as a bonus? Why didn't he get $20,000 as a bonus? There is no way for the public to know how you guys arrived at $180,000 for your CEO."

New: "Yeah, I understand that. And again, this is a competitive marketplace. You can't walk into any business and demand that information."

But critics counter that PHEAA is not a business. It's a state agency.

"You can't do that and call yourself a representative democracy," said Tim Potts of Democracy Rising Pa. "Citizens need to participate in this."

Potts formed Democracy Rising Pa. in the wake of the Legislature's infamous 2005 pay grab. He likens that stain on Pennsylvania government to PHEAA's big bonuses.

"You get people and you put them in a job for $150,000, which is about three times as much as the average family of four earns in a year in Pennsylvania," said Potts. "You ought to be able to find somebody to do this job for that amount of money, and you shouldn't have to throw in $50,000 as bonus at the end of the year. But that's the kind of question that an independent body ought to be looking at."

Not everyone at PHEAA got the big bonuses. In fact, 88 percent of agency workers didn't get any extra pay this year. PHEAA's union employees are not even eligible for bonuses.

Among the 50 lowest-wage earners at PHEAA who are full-time, only one got a bonus. But among the 50 highest-paid, 31 got bonuses.

New: "Now, here's something we couldn't win either way. If we gave bonuses to 88 percent of our employees, you'd be doing a totally different story here today, right?"

Parsons: "But why is the 12 percent so top-heavy toward executives?"

New: "Because that's where the big decisions are made."

State Auditor General Jack Wagner recently launched an audit of PHEAA, and he's already providing his position on the bonuses there.

"I'm not a believer in bonuses," Wagner said. "No one in the Department of Auditor General receives a bonus. I've never supported that when I was in the General Assembly. We are concerned, and we'll be looking at bonuses in terms of our audit of PHEAA."

Gov. Ed Rendell told Team 4 last week that he wants PHEAA to put students first.

"We want to see more of that PHEAA money used to go to students in the form of grants," Rendell said.

Parsons: "Can you think of a better use for $2.5 million than bonuses?"

Pendas: "I think we can send that to a lot of needy families who need that aid to go to college."

Something else Team 4 noticed while looking through PHEAA's 2007 payroll was that it said 44 college interns made $10,400 each, totaling $436,000.

New said those people are not actual interns, rather Pennsylvania State students who are employed part-time at PHEAA's State College customer call center. But again, PHEAA's payroll lists them as interns.

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