dreadedmonkeygod . net

Colleges are letting loan company representatives conduct mandatory "informational" sessions for students. From the New York Times:

The University of Maryland Eastern Shore, according to a recent news release, allows at least one lender, Consolidation Resource Center, to conduct exit counseling. The same news release also announced the company?s $10,000 donation to a university scholarship fund. University officials did not return repeated calls for comment.

I'm amazed that colleges are letting this go on. Lenders are conducting mandatory sessions for students on loan consolidation? And nobody thinks this is a conflict of interest?

Colleges are set up to help students, and I worry that they don't have the proper transparency and checks & balances in place to keep this kind of thing from happening. They work to help students, and so I worry that as institutions they're pretty nieve.

Of course, they could just be corrupt. The money involved is substantial, and students are easy targets.