By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

FORT LAUDERDALE | Just as the U.S. appears divided about a national plan for student loan debt forgiveness, a Catholic university president asserted that private education produces less student loan debt on average than public colleges and that higher education is still a proven path for success. 

“For the first time in our country’s history, education is being challenged from both sides of the aisles — the media, the politicians are saying that people don't get a good return on their investment for education,” said David A. Armstrong, president of St. Thomas, the archdiocesan university in Miami Gardens. 

He spoke to legal professionals from Broward County at the dinner following the 31st annual Red Mass hosted by the St. Thomas More Society of South Florida, and celebrated Oct. 18, 2022 at St. Anthony Church in Fort Lauderdale. The Mass celebrated by Archbishop Thomas Wenski along with a number of local clergy. (Read Archbishop Wenski's homily here.)

“As a president of a university, we have not done a good job of telling everyone how important higher education is,” Armstrong told the gathering.

But the statistics don’t lie. 

“To this day, the best investment anyone can make in their life ... is to earn a college degree. They will earn more (income) over their lifetime, but we tend to forget that because there is this mythical person who works at Starbucks who owes $200,000 in school loans,” he said. 

“No one has ever shown me who that person is, and I have never seen a name. At the private schools around this country the average debt is $19,000 and it's $21,000 if they went to a state school,” Armstrong added.

Biden's plan would cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for other borrowers, as long as they earn no more than $125,000 a year or are part of a household where total earnings are no more than $250,000. The plan only applies to federal loans, not those held by private institutions.

Although the administration is accepting applications from borrowers, and the U.S. Supreme Court already rejected one lawsuit, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary halt to the program Oct. 21.

Biden enacted the debt relief plan under the HEROES Act, which was passed after the Sept. 11 attacks sparked an American-led military campaign aimed at terrorism. The act gave the administration authority to forgive student loan debt in association with military operations or national emergencies. The administration has asserted that the law allows loan forgiveness for Americans dealing with financial hardship because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In addition to making the case for higher education, Armstrong made a detailed case that the values and moral code drawn from the life of St. Thomas More were still relevant for the modern world. 

ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Armstrong began his first year at St. Thomas University in August 2018. He is credited with launching a football and marching band program at the university, completing construction of the Gus Machado School of Business, beginning an Ethical Leadership Program, and raising more than $10.8 million for the school.

Prior to coming to Miami, he worked at Thomas More University, a Catholic liberal arts school belonging to the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, where he was president since 2013.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Armstrong holds a law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in political science, with a minor in accounting, from Mercyhurst University.

Local attorney John Seiler, who introduced Armstrong at the dinner, credited him and St. Thomas University for creating the first such Institute for Ethical Leadership in the state of Florida, saying it was foremost among the reasons he had been invited to speak to the St. Thomas More’s Society annual gathering. The institute offers bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in ethical leadership.

Founded in 1989, the St. Thomas More Society is a Catholic association of South Florida’s legal community — including lawyers, judges, public officials and other legal professionals — dedicated to advancing the principles of St. Thomas More.

Past speakers at the event, Seiler noted, included four university presidents, a past Florida governor, a U.S. Senator, a cardinal, three federal appellate judges and U.S. Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia. 

Seiler credited Armstrong for helping to ensure that faith-based colleges and universities “have not just survived but they have thrived ... in this very tough environment.”

“During his tenure, St. Thomas University has had four straight years of record enrollment. They have set fundraising records year after year and just witnessed the construction of 400,000 square feet of campus facilities right there in Miami Gardens,” Seiler said. 

JUDGE SEITZ HONORED

During the dinner, the St. Thomas More Society also gave its annual Archbishop McCarthy Award to Hon. Patricia A. Seitz, senior judge of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida. (See story here.)

Seitz was the 2018 recipient of the Florida Bar’s Chief Justice’s Distinguished Federal Judicial Service Award, which recognizes an active or retired federal judge for outstanding and sustained service to the public, especially as it relates to the support of pro bono legal services. 

Seitz was instrumental in that effort. When she was sworn in as president of The Florida Bar in 1993, its rule on pro bono service was brand new, and Seitz spent much of her year as president encouraging lawyers to embrace it.

She earned her law degree from Georgetown Law Center in 1973. She took senior status as a judge in 2012.

In addition, the St. Thomas More Society presented its Special Recognition & Appreciation award to Msgr. Vincent T. Kelly, who has been affiliated for more than 50 years with St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, and to the Hon. Ernest A Kollra, Jr., president of the board of directors of the St. Thomas More Society.