Earlier this month, I wrote about the lack of any student opposition to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA), which would cut wasteful government subsidies to student loan companies, and use the $87 billion in savings to raise Pell grants, invest in community colleges and minority serving institutions, expand the Perkins loan program, and more.
As it turns out, I may have spoken too soon. There is now one student who, through a lender run campaign, has spoken out against SAFRA. A freshman at Vanderbilt University has signed up with “Protect Student Choice/Protect Local Jobs,” which is apparently being run by Qorvis Communications. The student would not say whether he has any student loans.
While industry has found one student in its campaign to protect “student choice,” Campus Progress and its coalition partners have been more successful. More than 10,000 students signed a petition either online or on their campus to support student loan reform on the National Wall of Debt Day of Action on September 16th, and more than 40,000 people have signed petitions on Facebook supporting reform.
Additionally, numerous student newspapers have run editorials for student loan reform, including The Maine Campus, The Daily Cardinal, The Lariat, The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Daily Reveille, The Georgetown Voice, The Indiana Daily Student, and many others.
More recently, students across the country organized the Raising Pell Week of Action (10/5-9). Thousands of students from across the country called, tweeted, and faxed their Senators—both online and on campuses—asking them to support student loan reform so that they can expand the Pell grant and invest in other measures to make college more affordable and accessible.
The main spokespeople for the Protect Student Choice/Protect Local Jobs campaign are lenders and financial aid officers. The latter are, as a whole, divided on the issue: many are just resistant to change (and perhaps still longing for sweet perks from loan companies to include them in preferred lender lists). Others like the great folks at the Direct Loan Coalition, support reform.
Lenders, on the other hand, would rather keep their federal subsidies, even if it means less assistance for low and middle income students. Some of the spokespeople mentioned, such as President and CEO of New Hampshire Higher Education Assistance Foundation (NHHEAF) Rene Drouin, seem to epitomize what is wrong with the current federal financial aid system. Higheredwatch.org found that Drouin makes $550,072 a year, which is far more than his “foundation” gives out each year in scholarships, loan forgiveness, and other charitable contributions.
Qorvis Communications, by the way, has an interesting history. The firm was hired and later fired by AIG for using questionable tactics in the company’s “crisis management” efforts surrounding New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer’s investigation of the insurance industry. It has also come under fire for representing the pharmaceutical industry and the Saudi government. There was a raided on their offices in 2004 to investigate whether the company had complied with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. More recently, Congress began investigating whether the FDA improperly steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to the company to clean up the agency’s reputation.