Blog Post

No one wants students to borrow unnecessarily or to borrow too much, but students who do need and want to borrow should be able to do so in the safest way possible. That is why the federal guaranteed student loan programs were created. The federal loan programs are entitlements, meaning that they were designed to be available to all students who apply for loans.

I graduated from college last June, and I still use my mother's house as my permanent address for important mail. I got a call from her one day yelling at me for not taking care of my student loans, because Nelnet had sent me letters with an insignia that resembled a government seal, and bright red "2nd attempt" and "final notice" warnings emblazoned on the front. I didn’t...

From Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick to Democratic Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd, the idea of making community college "free" has been thrown around quite a bit recently. College tuition is getting too expensive – so the affordability problem is solved, right?

Iowa legislative staff interviewed Robert Shireman after his testimony to the Iowa legislature's Government Oversight Committee.

In our testimony to the Iowa legislature's Government Oversight Committee yesterday, we recommended that the state seek details on the rates charged to students by the Iowa Student Loan Liquidity Corporation, the nonprofit lender created by the state. Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, agrees with us and suggests additional information that should be disclosed by lenders....

By strong bipartisan votes, the Senate and House of Representatives passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act in early September. On September 27, President Bush signed the legislation. Public Law 110-84 includes a new Income Based Repayment plan modeled on our Plan for Fair Loan Payments. Along with the substantial increase in Pell Grants, this is the most significant...