How banks rip off college students and the government.


If you know anything at all about the federal student loan program, you will not have been surprised by the scandal of recent months. The only amazing thing is that it has taken so long to arrive. Here's how the program works: Banks and other private companies lend money to students. The federal government pays part or all of the interest—currently 7 percent or 8 percent. The government also guarantees the loans.

What is wrong with this picture? Well, the government itself borrows the odd nickel to finance the national debt. This borrowing, obviously, is also guaranteed by the government. For that reason, it carries an interest rate of only 3 percent or 4 percent. If the government can borrow money at 3 percent or 4 percent, why should it be paying 7 percent or 8 percent for the privilege of guaranteeing loans to someone else? Wouldn't it make more sense for the government to loan out the money itself?

That is the $4 billion question (the approximate annual cost of the interest subsidy). And the answer is: Of course that would make more sense. It is what any levelheaded businessperson would do. And what is stopping the government from behaving like a levelheaded businessperson? Not those head-in-the-clouds Democrats. It's Republicans, who adopted the student loan "industry" in its infancy, like a stray cat, and have nurtured it and protected it ever since. There actually is a parallel student loan program that does use government funds. It was started in the early days of the Clinton administration. It costs less to operate, and it has not been tainted by scandal. But when the Republicans regained control of Congress in 1994, they pushed through a law forbidding the Education Department to encourage the use of this program. As a result, direct federal loans account for only 25 percent of all student loans.

There is plenty of other encouragement going on. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has extracted fines of more than $1 million each from prestigious institutions like Columbia and Johns Hopkins—and, for that matter, nearly as prestigious institutions like Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. It seems that kickbacks were being paid to university financial aid officers who delivered customers. Some of them even got stock in some of the more specialized, and dubious, student loan companies. When the government is giving away free money—which is what the program amounts to (and I mean giving it away to the banks, not to the students)—it's worth a good deal to get cut in on such a good deal.

When the student loan abuse story broke, fingers were pointed at the Education Department, which is supposed to supervise the program. The Government Accountability Office minced no words. It called on the department to "develop a protocol to determine the appropriate level of response for cases of non-compliance and assess the effectiveness of these actions to inform and improve this protocol." Wow. While the Education Department quaked in its boots over that one, Congress more usefully passed a bill substantially reforming the student loan program and cutting the subsidy to banks and other loan providers by 80 percent. President Bush, to his credit, will sign these reforms into law. In fact, he actually proposed some of them in his budget from February of this year. But this puts him at odds with his party.

The student loan "industry," as it is comically referred to in the newspapers, is an interesting case study in politics and business. To start, it is hardly an industry. There are no factories. The only things it "makes" are loans. Furthermore, it exists only because of a government program. Yet in the four decades since the federal government started it, the student loan business has evolved into a pretty good imitation of an industry, with trade associations, lobbyists, and support from politicians, mostly Republican. This "industry" is so dependent on the good will of politicians, in fact, that the reform bill alone may be enough to queer the deal in which its biggest player, Sallie Mae, is supposed to be bought by a private-equity firm for $25 billion. Even before taking over, the private-equity firm booted Sallie Mae's CEO on the explicit grounds that he did not have good relations with Democrats. To run this so-called company, in other words, you don't need to know how to make widgets or even how to make loans. You just need to know how to make nice. But don't feel too bad for this CEO who suddenly found his Rolodex obsolete: He made $40 million last year and will get millions more if the deal does go through.

But why do Republicans love student loans? Oh, in part the usual reasons: lobbyists and campaign contributions. There is almost sure to be at least one of these firms in your district—the local bank, if no one else. But there is more. Student loans are the clearest example of the common Republican confusion between free-market capitalism and business. Capitalism is an economic system that is held, with some justification, to be the best guarantor of prosperity. Business can be capitalism in action, or it can be something entirely different. There is very little about the student loan program that has anything to do with free-market capitalism. Yet whenever the student loan system comes under criticism, lobbyists, "industry" leaders, and supportive politicians haul out the same old clichés as if they were defending Adam Smith's famous pin factory itself.

During the recent reform bill debate in the House, for example, a Republican from Texas, Jeb Hensarling, declared that the very notion of reducing the subsidy to private companies was "all part of a Democratic tax-and-spend program." Rep. Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, declared that "we should call this the new Democratic welfare bill," because it was "taking away personal responsibility from people and giving them out and out payments for loans that they take out." This may be referring to a part of the bill that would forgive loans after many years for people who devote their lives to public service. Or it may just be nuts.

A so-called "analysis" by an industry expert, which (according to the Washington Post) circulated on Capitol Hill during the debate, worried that the big boys would survive, but the subsidy reductions "may leave smaller lenders unprofitable." Concern for "small lenders" was a common theme, as if a loan from a ma-and-pa bank, if such an institution exists, would be warmer and cuddlier than a loan from Citibank. Another common theme was that the subsidy cut was part of a covert Democratic effort to drive people into the direct federal loan program—or, as one lender CEO described it, the "one-size-fits-all direct loan program." This would be no bad thing, but it doesn't seem to have been the case. I'm not sure what "one size fits all" means here, but if it refers to the interest rate that students and their families have to pay, it's true that there is only one rate in the government program, compared with many in the private one—all of them higher, but maybe there are people for whom the variety is worth it.
By Michael Kinsley via www.slate.com

True education reform

As the furor over American education increases, the demand for simple answers to complex issues escalates.

The easiest – and most visible – target for the ills of education is the classroom teacher. After all, teachers are entrusted with providing students with the tools to be successful in life and society; taxpayers expect a return on their investment.

Local, state and national standards lay out in excruciating detail just what is expected. Curriculum standards describe the content that students must learn, and professional development sessions disseminate the newest educational pedagogy designed to impart this information. To say that it is a daunting task is an understatement. The issue is not why so many teachers leave the profession, but rather, why so many stay.

Schools are a reflection of the society as a whole. If society truly values education, why is the average academic school year in the United States almost two weeks less than the international average for industrialized nations? When Americans complain about the preparation their students are receiving for college or work, perhaps some attention to should be directed to how long our students are in school and what takes up their time while they are there.

Then there is the need for "soft" preparation – things like work ethic, behavior, punctuality. Business leaders complain that new workers often don't understand the need to be on time, work hard, dress appropriately and act in a manner acceptable to the work place. But if the community – and parents – don't make sure students come to school on time, dressed properly and prepared to work, teachers must take up the slack. That takes time away from education in the curriculum standards. Perhaps an expectation that students arrive at school on time and get ready to work might be in order.

So, how should we improve high school to prepare students for college/career? The following suggestions might help.

• Lengthen the school year, but not the curriculum. Give schools more time to teach the existing curriculum, and there will be improvement. Even 10 or 15 more days would allow teachers time for review, for exploration of ideas, or for in-depth writing assignments.

• Get past the idea that school should be "fun!" What adults consider fun and what students consider fun are not the same. School should be challenging, interesting, exciting and illuminating, but not necessarily "fun." Sometimes it takes plain old hard work to master a concept. Sesame Street and other well-intentioned shows have done more damage than we realize in reducing education to sound bites. Education should not be all "drill and kill," but it is also not all fun and games. Homework is a necessary reinforcement, and the students won't learn the material as well when the parent decides that soccer practice, dance lessons or work is more important. The message that is being sent to the students is that hard work and practice are not necessary for school work.

• If the purpose of school is education let's consider the amount of time students spend on non-academic pursuits like athletics, journalism, band or choir, cheerleading and drill team, or theater. Of course there is value in each of these activities, but if the time students spend preparing for them were directed into academics, there would undoubtedly be improvement in academic results. Heresy? Perhaps, but this is where the community and society have to change. As long as Friday Night Lights or the high school musical have priority, not much will improve.

A demand for higher test scores, more stringent teacher evaluations, or more money – these are not the primary answers to the problems of education. The responsibility for education lies not just with the teacher, but with students who come to school prepared to learn, educational environments that are free from interruption and parents who work with the schools for the academic success of the students.

Without them, all other changes are cosmetic at best.

Sue Blanchette teaches U.S. history at Hillcrest High School in Dallas and is a Teacher Voices volunteer columnist. Her e-mail address is eagle91048@ ix.netcom.com.

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