sallie mae

Update: Add Florida to the list, as the University of Miami caves to Sallie Mae:

According to excellent reporting in the St. Petersburg Times, many University of Miami incoming freshmen were surprised this summer when they received pre-filled out master promissory notes from loan giant Sallie Mae even though they never actually applied for a loan. The students were particularly shocked to see that the notes included personal information, such as their Social Security numbers and birthdates, which they had not authorized the university to release.

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Higher Education Watch is reporting a disturbing piece of news. Sallie Mae and other corporate lenders are using state Freedom of Information Laws in a bid to force colleges and universities to hand over private information about students and their financial status. So far these types of requests are known to have been filed in New York, Pennsylvania and Oregon.

According to Higher Ed Watch, Sallie Mae will not challenge any schools that refuse to comply with the request, and insist that their intent in making such requests is to inform students of "all of their financial options." That is a hard pill to swallow. Sallie Mae is a company that profits by pushing more costly private loans on students over loans that come directly from the federal government. As Higher Ed Watch notes, a more likely explanation is that Sallie Mae and other lenders are targeting schools where they have failed to be included on the preferred lender list - a listing of private lending institutions that school financial aid offices provide to students who need to fill in the gaps in their funding after grants and federal lending options are exhausted.

What can be done? Students at schools can engage their financial aid offices to see if Sallie Mae or other lenders have issues such requests, and activists can work towards strengthening the Family Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act. FOI laws were created to increase transparency in government, not to allow corporations to exploit young people trying to pay for an education.

I've heaped praise on MTV over the past month for their innovation in reaching out to younger voters online, so it was disappointing to me to read this article in Ad Age announcing announcing MTV's Tr3s, a bilingual channel for Latinos.

NEW YORK MTV Tr3s, the bilingual channel for young Latinos, featured a first-ever platform Saturday for its viewers to voice their opinions on the immigration debate, an issue that is a personal one for many Hispanic youths who are undocumented or who have family members who are not legal U.S. residents.

For the fledgling channel, the move is part of a wider effort through other issue-themed programming on television and online to enhance the political clout of Latinos heading into the 2008 election. The immigration debate is expected to emerge as a key voter issue among Hispanics.

It isn't the channel or the project that I object to. 18% of Millennials are Hispanic, they are one of the fastest growing portions of the electorate, and young Latinos deserve a forum in broadcast media. With ethnic media becoming a force, it makes business sense for MTV as well. As Ad Age reports, advertising in the Latino youth market was a $2.9 billion industry last year.

My objection is with MTV's partner and sponsor: Salie Mae and the U.S. Army, respectively. MTV is selling this programming as a form of community service to young Latinos:

"MTV has a mantra of doing a lot of community outreach with the MTV Think campaign, and we're always promoting civic engagement and activism," Ballas-Traynor said. "For us [at MTV Tr3s], the perspective was, 'This is done a lot by Univision, Telemundo and others, but ours is a different audience with a different perspective.'"

Using the Think campaign Web site, MTV Tr3s will promote its issued-themed programming, giving viewers a chance to continue the dialogue on immigration and other issues such as education.

But, to paraphrase Kanye, Sallie Mae does not care about young people. They are a company that is involved in some of the student loan scandals that have graced the pages of our media in the last 6 months. They are a for profit company that exploits young people and the government, and worked hard to keep our student lending system highly inefficient and dysfunctional (though to be sure, more profitable for them).

If MTV had looked, they could easily have found a partner more suited to serving the interests of young Latinos. The Center for Community Change or the Ella Baker Center immediately jumps to mind. Working with MTV would be a huge profile boost for those organizations, both of which have roots in the communities MTV would be trying to reach. Instead, MTV is providing cover for an company whose interests are fundamentally at odds with those of the constituency they are purporting to help.

MTV's major advertiser, The U.S. Army, has a similar credibility problem. As has been reported in numerous places, the U.S. Army frequently uses Hip Hop culture to recruit African American teenagers, presenting a glorified image of life in the Army, and even a leg up on life. Yet few soldiers ever receive all the benefits they are promised by recruiters. I find it difficult to believe that the Army's intentions and tactics would be any less objectionable among Latinos.

It seems like MTV is doing the right thing in launching its bilingual channel, but if it is really concerned about giving Latinos a voice in the public debate and an equal place at the table in our society, it might want to look into brokering partnerships with organizations that actually have the best interests of latinos at heart. I don't expect MTV to be altruistic; they are a for profit company. But surely there are potential partners available that could better suit the interests of latino youth without hurting MTV's bottom line.

Cross posted at MyDD and Daily Kos.

Another update on Nelson-Burr (aka the corporate lender welfare amendment). Word is that the vote is going to be around noon today and it is going to be tight. Yesterday, Rick Enzi, ranking Republican on the Senate Education committee declared that he would vote against the amendment, potentially bringing a number of Republicans over with him. A number of Senators s are on the fence - particularly Tester on the Democratic side and Smith on the Republican side - but many of the Senators listed below don't really know anything about the amendment or how it would impact students.

Give them a call before noon today. Tell them why they should vote yes on the bill and no on the Nelson-Burr amendment. The Capitol Switchboard can be reached at (202) 224-3121.

Update:
Here's the list of swing votes who might side with Nelson and the corporate lenders over debt-ridden students:

Alexander (R - TN)
Bayh (D - IN)
Carper (D - DE)
Coleman (R - MN)
Collins (R - ME)
Hatch (R - UT)
Landrieu (D - LA)
McCaskill (D - MO)
Murkowski (R - AK)
Nelson, Ben (D - NE)
Nelson, Bill (D - FL)
Roberts (R - KS)
Tester (D - MT)
Webb (D - VA)

Call their offices and urge them to vote YES on S. 1762, and NO on the Nelson-Burr Amendment. The Capitol Switchboard can be reached at (202) 224-3121.
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Cross posted at Daily Kos and MyDD. Please recommend.

Last week, most student organizations rejoiced as the Democrats shepherded the Cost of College Reduction Act through the House of Representatives. The Bill represented the largest increase in student aid since the G.I. Bill. It accomplished this in part by cutting excess government subsidies to corporate lenders, who were fattening their wallets on the backs of debt-ridden students. Republicans tried unsuccessfully to kill the bill in the House. The Gavel had an excellent post about that fight and the bill’s passage.

The Senate version of the bill – The Higher Education Access Act of 2007 - is set to provide $17 billion in student aid to college students and recent graduates, among other provisions to further protect students. But Ben Nelson (D-NE), whose home state is also home to Nelnet, one of the biggest corporate lenders, is trying to weaken the Senate version of the bill and return $3 billion of that to the lending industry so they can continue to line their pockets on with corporate welfare.

What I’m hearing is that the cloture votes on Iraq and the DOD reauthorization are going to fail, and the Higher Education Access Act of 2007 will be brought to the floor instead, with voting to be scheduled for today or tomorrow. Right now, Republicans supposedly have 3-6 Democrats willing to side with lenders on the Amendment, so they are likely to see it pass.

Here’s what you can do:

• Call your Senator and urge them to vote YES on S. 1762, and NO on the Nelson-Burr Amendment. The Capitol Switchboard can be reached at (202) 224-3121, and the operators can tell you both who your Senators are and connect you.
• Also ask which way your Senator plans on voting. If we can find out who those 3-6 Democrats are that are supporting lender subsidies over students we can ratchet up the pressure on them.

If you find out which Democrats (besides Nelson) are in favor of the Nelson-Burr Amendment, contact me and I'll keep an updated list and post around the blogosphere.

The lenders (and Nelson’s) argument is that cuts in subsidies need to be scaled back so that lenders can offer students benefits, and that subsidy cuts will cause the loan market to consolidate and there will be less choice for students. This is bunk. The loan market is already consolidated, and less than 10% of students ever see a dime of those supposed “benefits.” Meanwhile, groups like NelNet and Sallie Mae have used those government subsidies to give outrageous benefits packages to CEOs, reap hundreds of millions in additional profits, and improperly wine and dine university officials who should be protecting the interests of students.

$3 billion could fund 588,000 Pell Grants at the maximum level of $5100. As millions of students are getting priced out of college, or saddled with unmanageable levels of debt, our government should be voting to protect and aid students, not funnel more money to corporations already reaping hundreds of millions in government subsidies and profits.