Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joins students and Representatives at a rally in September supporting the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act

Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote an op-ed supporting student loan reform that was published in the Wall Street Journal today. This comes after a pretty bad editorial earlier this month against reform.

One of the biggest sticking points against reform has been the fear that the government couldn’t handle the increase in loan volume and that schools would have a hard time switching over to the Direct Loan Program. Duncan sets the record straight:

By working with private sector companies with expertise in the field, we are prepared to initiate all new student loans in the existing federal Direct Loan program. Right now, the Education Department already owns and services 80% of the student loans made last year. It owns such a high volume of loans chiefly because it had to take emergency action in 2008 to ensure students had access to loans when lending in the nation’s credit markets was frozen.

Our experience handling the bulk of student loans makes me confident in our capability. This year alone, an additional 500 colleges and universities joined the Direct Loan program. Just last month, the department’s independent inspector general’s office issued a report documenting that the Education Department had taken the right management steps so that all loans can be serviced by the Direct Loan program.

In a recent survey by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, schools that have made the switch to direct lending overwhelmingly reported the conversion was easy and quick. That is just one reason why that association of financial aid experts, along with organizations representing the nation’s largest public and private universities, community colleges and college students, support the department’s Direct Loan proposal.

You can learn more about and take action on student loan reform, which will cut wasteful subsidies to student loan companies and invest the $87 billion in savings in education, at Students Over Banks.