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Friday, March 26, 2010

Congress Passes New Student Loan Bill: Education Dept. "Flying Solo" Eliminating Banks - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Congress Passes New Student Loan Bill: Education Dept. "Flying Solo" Eliminating Banks - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.


Fierce Bank Lobbying Defeated!
"Can DOE Handle It Solo?", asks NPR.
Goal To Make It Easier For More Students To Get Loans

While we were all watching or hearing about the historic passing of health care legislation, another bill passed in Congress yesterday which affects the student loan equation: The Department of Education will now be the provider of student loans exclusively, eliminating that shared role from banks.

Justification? To allow more students access to loans and to prevent interest rates on those loans to soar. If that doesn't sound like a good enough idea, The New York Times offers a quick explanation why we eliminated the bank brokering of student loans, with link to full articlehere:


"Ending one of the fiercest lobbying fights in Washington, Congress voted Thursday to force commercial banks out of the federal student loan market, cutting off billions of dollars in profits in a sweeping restructuring of financial-aid programs and redirecting most of the money to new education initiatives."

With that being said, NPR this morning had a few concerns about the process of it all, with link