A student loan company was paying Florida Atlantic University $50 for the names of each recent graduate who signed up.
The University of Central Florida's alumni association took a lender's money to host a homecoming event.
Florida International University allowed loan company reps to process loans during busy times, in its financial aid office, no less.
Given those lapses, university system Chancellor Mark Rosenberg is correct when he says that a code of conduct is the minimum that should result from Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's probe of the preferred-lender arrangements that, so far, seem to be even worse in other states.
Last week, Columbia University fired its financial aid director who, after he received some of the $100,000 in stock he owned in Student Loan Xpress' parent company, put the lender on a preferred list for which the company had not bid. While promoting the lender to parents and alumni, reports The New York Times, he also advised it on marketing strategy, even helping to draft talking points against another lender's charges about universities taking kickbacks to steer students.
Also, as with the longtime Johns Hopkins University financial aid director who was fired last week for her $65,000 in fees and such from Student Loan Xpress, the benefit occurred without any disclosure of financial interest in the lender.
As New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo told The Times, it seemed "that the aid officials were working more for Student Loan Xpress than for their universities."
Florida's probe follows Mr. Cuomo's investigation, which finally spurred scrutiny of the unconscionable gouging of students and their parents that has become standard practice in the $85 billion student loan industry since the end of the Clinton administration.
Because of a disputed government subsidy that guaranteed a 9.5''percent return on many of its loans, for example, Nebraska-based Nelnet received an artificially high rate of return. The Education Department's inspector general said the lender should repay most of the money. Instead, the department in a January settlement said it made Nelnet stop but would not try to recover the $278''million in overpayments.
That warrants the Justice Department investigation of which Congress is hinting. Things may not as bad at FAU where, as The Post reported, University Financial Services was using the school's name on its Web site, in its Web address and in its (877) 2PAY-FAU phone number. But it probably will take more pushing to find all the places lenders pushed for unfair favors.Labels: financial aid, free education, high school, scholarship, student loans, study abroad |
