That's the fate of the private loan companies as described by Barmak Nassirian, head of government relations at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers Barmak is the resident philosophe of the higher ed community and is renowned for, among other things, his amazing capacity for catchy quotes.
This particular quote hails from an LA Times article on Monday describing what new Congressional leadership means for private banks. The thesis has been repeated in a number of different sources (thought this may be the best article so far for its quotes from the lending industry and the Democrats)-but basically the Democrats believe that it's possible to more efficiently use higher education taxpayer dollars by cutting waste in the student loan programs and giving it to students.
The lenders are trying to make themselves look like victims-in part by playing revisionist history and claiming that banks, not students took serious cuts in last years reconciliation fight. That is not the case. We're going to have to make decisions in this country about whether we want our tax dollars going to Sallie Mae or to students....
To anyone who checks the blog regularly sorry for the absence-between the holiday and just a crush of work I've been tardy on this post.
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2 comments:
You must be kidding when you call Barmak Nassirian of the college registrars association the "resident philosophe of the higher ed community."
He works for the institutions that set the prices, which have been skyrocketing. Of course, he points his finger at someone else.
If PIRG is your best authority for the proposition that "students (not banks) took serious cuts" last spring, that's not very convincing.
Three or four years ago, both Republicans and Democrats voted to raise interest rates on Stafford loans to a fixed 6.8 percent, effective July 1, 2006.
Luke, you are aware of that earlier law, aren't you? You may have even supported it.
When Congress cut lender payments by $15-16 billion last spring (by eliminating something called floor income), Congress chose not to use those savings to amend the earlier law and reduce rates.
It did use some of it to pay for raising the annual cap on borrowing and other changes benefiting borrowers. And it chose to use about $12 billion of the savings to "reduce the deficit" (their words, not mine).
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