Sunday, May 21, 2006

Ralph Nader on Sallie Mae

Student Loan Justice sent out an email tonight about the reactions they've gotten since the 60 Minutes piece on Sallie Mae a couple weeks ago--
"So...I've received over a thousand emails in the past two weeks. I've answered them all personally. Its been pretty overwhelming, but I've been awestruck to read about all of your situations. Suicides, wrecked families, destroyed lives, being forced to leave the country, living "underground"--I've heard about all of these in the past two weeks. All because of Student Loans. STUDENT LOANS. How in God's name did this country get so badly off track?
I would say that at this point, this is a bonafide grassroots movement, and you are the first members- "

They pointed me to this essay by Ralph Nader on Counterpunch about Sallie Mae, which hits all the highlights:

Originally a government-sponsored enterprise like Fannie Mae, Sallie Mae was privatized in 1997 and is now the largest private lender to students. But not entirely private. The federal government is its guarantor. Michael Dannenberg of the New America Foundation told Leslie Stahl:

"It may be called 'private'but it's not private at all. Frankly it's a socialist-like system. It's not as if this private entity is assuming any risks. No, no, no. The law makes sure that this so-called private entity has virtually no risk."


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Michael Dannenberg--now there's an unbiased expert.

How can a guy (Dannenberg) who supports a 100% government-run loan program call the public-private guaranteed loan program "socialistic"?