All Posts Tagged: 'Direct Loan Program'


Federal Student Aid’s Annual Report

November 17th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized

Federal Student Aid (FSA), the office within the U.S. Department of Education that handles loans and grants, recently published its fiscal year 2009 report. This document provides a lot of interesting information about the general state of federal postsecondary assistance and also rates the office’s performance over the past year. It’s a fairly long document, [...]

Real Conversations

April 29th, 2009 | Category: Undergraduate Education

Higher Ed Watch writes today about one of the arguments private lenders are using in support of the FFEL program, and against Obama’s proposal to provide all loans through the federal government’s Direct Loan program: that the profits the government will make on loans to primarily middle class students will be used to subsidize increased [...]

A Quick History Lesson

April 27th, 2009 | Category: Undergraduate Education

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, would-be commerce secretary Senator Judd Gregg evokes a revisionist history of the FFEL (private lenders) vs Direct Loans (government as lender) debate as evidence of Democrats’ intentions to move to a single-payer, government-based health care system. I can’t comment on Democrats’ future plans for health [...]

And the Real Problem Is…

September 10th, 2008 | Category: Undergraduate Education

Now that it’s September and most college students are back in their dorms, the press has quieted down about the looming “student loan crisis” that made for great headlines a few months ago. As this article, online at the American Prospect, explains, this is because there hasn’t been much of a crisis after all. As [...]

Profits vs. Purpose

June 3rd, 2008 | Category: Undergraduate Education

This article in yesterday’s NYT underscores the need for market-sensitive subsidy payments in the federal loan program–or a wholesale shift to the Direct Loan program. The NYT reports that 2-year colleges are worried that their students will have a harder time finding student loans in the next few years. Because it’s more expensive now for [...]

Politics and Student Loans

May 13th, 2008 | Category: Undergraduate Education

In today’s Washington Post, Kevin Burns, the Executive Director of America’s Student Loan Providers, which represents dozens of student loan companies, takes issue with a May 5th Washington Post editorial supporting the Direct Loan program. It’s not surprising that the leader of an organization dedicated to supporting private student loan companies wouldn’t like an editorial [...]