Student Loan Blog

A bill to overhaul the student loan industry may reach Congress as early as next week; education-committee chairs are working behind the scenes on a piece of legislation that would eliminate the third-party student loan system called the Federal Family Education Loan Program, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports (“Behind the Scenes, a ...

Although the government has taken steps to bolster the federal student loan program by expanding Pell Grant awards and raising the maximum award amount of federal Stafford student loans, federal financial aid will still not be enough for many families to pay for college this year. Grappling with stock market losses that have negatively affected ...

In what is being viewed as a direct hit to private third-party lenders in the Federal Family Education Loan Program who are fighting to keep the program alive, the U.S. Department of Education’s preliminary data paints the FFEL program as a costly and ineffective system with a 7.3-percent student loan default rate, two whole points higher than ...

Three former University of Phoenix students are suing the for-profit higher education giant for using a questionable loan repayment practice that skews the university’s default rate and takes away federal student loan repayment options from students who withdraw from the school, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Lawsuit ...

Paying for college definitely isn’t getting any easier. “It just seems like it’s really hard, because it is,” says Diana Jacobs, a mother of twin, college seniors, whose husband recently lost his job, forcing the family to go from borrowing modestly to maxing out their student loan amounts (“In Downturn Families Strain to Pay Tuition,” The New ...

As cash-strapped lenders continue to drop out of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, the number of student loans originated for the 2008–09 school year through the government’s Direct Loan Program has increased by 43 percent, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education (“As ‘Crisis’ Deters Loan Companies, Direct Lending Sees ...

College graduates preparing to enter critical fields like nursing and teaching may no longer be able to take advantage of programs that previously offered them a break on their student loans. In at least six states this year, state-affiliated lenders have dropped or scaled back programs that repay or forgive a portion of a borrower’s federal ...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton recently announced the details of a sweeping plan to help ensure students have continued access to federal student loans amid a flurry of private lenders leaving the federal student loan program. “Hundreds of thousands of students who are actively considering how to finance their education could be left in ...

At a meeting Dec. 12, 2006 assembled by the Department of Education, a committee discussed potential changes to regulations in federal student loan programs, according to a Dec. 13, 2006 article by Kelly Field titled “Rulemaking Panel Begins Debate on How to Change Federal Student-Loan Programs” that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher ...