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TWiT 148: Sporn

First, their offices' relationships with lenders were called into question.
And more recently, they've had to contend with the credit crunch and, for some,
the loss of loan providers. Those issues were understandably rehashed here at
the annual conference of the National Association of Student Financial Aid
Administrators.

Many student-aid offices give students a "preferred-lender list," which
reduces the number of lenders a college is likely to deal with each year, making
choosing a lender less complicated.

But the rules have changed since Andrew M. Cuomo, New York's attorney
general, began investigating the sometimes too-close relationships between
colleges and preferred lenders in 2007. While the new regulations can help
prevent bias in the selection of lenders, they have some aid administrators
afraid to give students any advice.

Last year, student-aid administrators at the dean or vice-president level
earned a median of $110,000 at four-year public institutions, $83,177 at
four-year private colleges, and $75,384 at two-year publics.

The much larger category of student-aid directors earned a median salary of
$62,800, the survey found, though salary also varied by institution type. The
median salary was highest ($74,110) at four-year public colleges and
universities, followed by two-year public colleges at $61,000. Directors at
four-year private institutions earned $60,710, while those at two-year private
colleges made the least ($54,000).

After months of turmoil, life appears to be getting better throughout the
land of student lending. At least for the colleges and the lenders. For student
borrowers, the results of the recent federal loan-rescue plan and other changes
in student-aid law may be more mixed.

Also, the Education Department, in issuing new terms for the lender rescue
plan it announced on May 21, may have set the stage for some lenders to reduce
or eliminate the benefits they provide to student borrowers. The plan, based on
legislation recently approved by Congress, commits the federal government to
offering loan companies both low-interest lines of credit and the ability to
sell their loans to the government at a rate exceeding their face value.

Sallie Mae and other leading loan companies, including Nelnet, Chase, and
Wachovia, have already cited that clarification as cause for reducing promised
levels of student benefits, said Tim Ranzetta, president of Student Loan
Analytics, which advises colleges on student-loan options. Total loan benefits
offered to students in the coming academic year by the top 10 lenders will be
about 66 percent lower than the previous year, Mr. Ranzetta said.

Only a few weeks ago, Sallie Mae was describing the economic environment as
so troubled that it might soon be out of available funds for lending, with no
available buyers of its debt. It announced this week that it would offer federal
loans to any eligible student at any college in the country.

The increased federal borrowing power is an overall benefit to students,
since fewer will need to resort to higher-priced "private" loans, which banks
issue outside the federally subsidized system, said Roberta L. Johnson, director
of student financial aid at Iowa State University

The interest rate of 6.8 percent on federal loans is far better for students
than private loans with variable rates that can run to 14 percent or higher, Ms.
Johnson said. "Those are just bad loans," she said.

"I just can't say enough kind things" about the Education Department's work
on expanding the direct-lending system, Ms. Johnson said on Thursday as she
prepared to board a flight back to Iowa after leading a weeklong lobbying trip
to Washington by her coalition members.

TechRadium, which makes emergency-notification software, filed suit against
Blackboard last month in U.S. District Court in Texas, claiming that similar
software sold by Blackboard violates TechRadium's patent. Blackboard began
selling notification software this year when it purchased NTI Group, maker of a
system used at more than 200 colleges.