The telephone number looks like any other university extension. And when students call with questions about financial aid, the recorded voice at the other end says, 'Thank you for calling Texas Tech University's Student Financial Center.'But what is remarkable about the center is not so much that it is actually located hundreds of miles away from Texas Tech's Lubbock campus. It's that the people giving advice are not university employees at all - instead they work for Nelnet, a company that made more than $68 million last year off of student loans.
...Texas Tech, which defends the arrangement as beneficial to students, is hardly alone. Nelnet says its Texas call center located in Bryan and another in Indianapolis provide advice on behalf of about 10 different colleges; one is Wayne State University in Detroit. Pace University and Mercy College in New York City and its suburbs are among the roughly 20 institutions that use call centers operated by Sallie Mae, the nation's largest student loan company.
Documents obtained by the New York attorney general's office show, according to officials, that some contracts between the colleges and the lenders require the call center staffers to identify themselves as part of the university. Loan company officials interviewed all declined to say which colleges use their centers.
...The relationships between loan companies and universities are increasingly coming under attack by federal and state officials as tuition continues to rise and students are accumulating heavy debt loads to pay for college. In 2006, students borrowed about $85 billion, according to the College Board.
(Jonathon D. Glater, "Colleges Hiring Lenders to Field Queries on Aid," The New York Times, March 29, 2007) (Hat tip to World Congress of Families)
