Student Loan Blog

Nonprofit Wyoming Student Loan Corp., the state’s largest student loan lender, has announced that, as of April 1, 2010, it will no longer be issuing any new parent or student loans. In a statement from president and CEO Phil Van Horn, the company, also known as WyoLoan, said that it will continue to fund any student loans that are already ...

While acting last Thursday to approve the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which will expand federal oversight of private student loans, a Congressional panel at the same time voted to reject a proposal that would have included school-sponsored “gap loans” under the authority of the new CFPA. The House Financial Services ...

Voting in support of the creation of a new federal Consumer Financial Protection Agency, a Congressional panel has laid the groundwork for expanded federal oversight of private student loans. In a vote last Thursday of 39 to 29 that fell largely along party lines, the House Financial Services Committee approved the Consumer Financial ...

Even as the recession has depressed consumer prices and the cost of living has fallen over the last year, college tuition rose in 2009, with the largest percentage increases coming at community colleges and public four-year schools — the mounting expense of an education revealed in the College Board’s latest reports on financial aid and the ...

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 ...

A large proportion of students who only take out non-federal private student loans to finance their education aren’t applying for federal financial aid at all, and it’s the application itself that may be culprit, a new study suggests (“Nightmare Application May Be Driving Students to Costly Loans,” Forbes, June 9, 2009). In his study of 250,000 ...

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 ...

The College Board — an organization of some 5,000 colleges best known for its college admission tests — has petitioned Congress to allow students who are undocumented immigrants to qualify for tuition aid and citizenship, The Associated Press reports (“U.S. Colleges Push Tuition Aid for Immigrants,” April 21, 2009). While undocumented ...

According to analysis of Department of Education data released last week, the number of college students taking out private student loans over the last five years has risen sharply. Analysis by student advocacy group The Project on Student Debt revealed that the percentage of all undergraduates who took out private student loans last school ...

Weighed down by job losses, limited job availability, and lower salary wages, college graduates — who leave school owing an average of $22,500 in student loans — are defaulting on their federal student loans at the highest rate since 1998 (“In Grim Job Market, Student Loans Are a Costly Burden,” The New York Times, April 18, 2009). “When it ...