Education

Senate Unanimously Passes Bill to Reauthorize the Higher Education Act

Yesterday, Higher Ed Watch reported that Catherine B. Reynolds' nonprofit company EduCap has marketed private loans -- under the brand name Loan to Learn -- that are as expensive, and in many cases even more expensive, than its for-profit competitors.

By almost all accounts, Catherine B. Reynolds nonprofit company EduCap, which lends private student loans under the brand name Loan to Learn occupies a fairly unique space in the student loan industry. There are other nonprofit private student loan providers. But those tend to be state-affiliated organizations that offer private loans at cheaper rates than banks and other for-profit lenders.

Last week, Higher Ed Watch questioned why Education Secretary Margaret Spellings had granted the accrediting arm of the American Bar Association (ABA) continued recognition as the sole Education Department-approved law school accreditor. We had hoped that she would take tougher action against an entity that has bucked compliance with federal standards for over a decade.

Senate Passes Bill to Cut Lender Subsidies

Congress is inching closer to slashing overly generous subsidies the government provides student loan banks and increasing need-based student aid by a concomitant amount.

In 1961, 13 three- and four-year-olds from poor black families began attending a preschool class at Perry Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. They were there as much to learn as to teach. A team of researchers followed not only their time at the preschool, but their trajectory over the next four decades, and the findings were startling:

Crocodile tears are streaming down K Street and up Capitol Hill from bankers crying about the student loan subsidy rates Congress is poised to cut.

But think tanks, the Congressional Budget Office and lawmakers such as Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) say lenders' complaints are a diversion to keep Congress from truly cutting into the profits of the $85 billion student-lending industry.

After walking a tightrope for more than a decade, the only entity in the nation that accredits law schools, an arm of the American Bar Association (ABA), has avoided a fall once againthanks in part to the fortuitous timing of an unrelated accreditation issue between Congress and the Education Department.