How Did the Servicers Do?
First quarter fiscal year 2010 customer service results for the four lenders chosen to service federal student loans sold to the U.S. Department of Education can be found here, with the methodology explained here.
Not much to see yet since the real work does not start until students enter repayment, but so far they are all pretty close. Borrowers and schools like Sallie Mae, while the federal personnel really prefer PHEAA.
Student Loan Commentary (Cont.)
Over at Brainstorm, Diane Auer Jones responded to my earlier postcritiquing her arguments in favor of preserving a bank-based student loan system. I’ll try to provide some clarifications/critiques.
First, Jones writes that my original post confused private and federal loans because I was talking about the interest rate charged on alternative loans. But that wasn’t a mistake. It was a direct response to her talking about how current Stafford and PLUS loans are below the “market rate.” According to Jones, the market rate is