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Yesterday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced that they had reached a settlement with the College Board regarding the preferred lender list controversy that has been unfolding since early 2007. The investigation revealed that the College Board had been offering discounts on its products to college financial aid offices that agreed to add their student loan service to a preferred lender list. Discounts of more than 20 percent off the College Board's proprietary software were given in exchange for placement on preferred lender lists. The College Board pulled out of private loans in 2007, but the investigations continued, culminating in yesterday's settlement, the latest of several with private student lenders.
The College Board has agreed to adhere to a code of conduct if it ever returns to the private lending market. The organization will be required to put $675,000 towards developing tools to help students and financial aid offices compare student loan offers. The College Board will also be required to distribute its new student loan calcualtors and "requests for proposals" (the forms that will allow for comparison among student loans) freely to schools for the next two financial aid cycles.
This news came as the Career College Assocation, an organization of private career-training institution administrators, released the results of a survey indicating the difficulty that students at two year, for-profit schools currently face finding money for college. More students are registering but not attending classes, and having trouble finding a private loan without a cosigner. The majority of schools report students needing to change lenders or facing higher interest rates. Some students are unable to procure a private loan at all, while others are contending with delayed loan disbursements. A number of these colleges have stepped in to offer institutional student loans, ranging from less than $1,000 to over $10,000, to students who are unable to meet the gap between their federal student financial aid and their cost of attendance.