Federal Official in Student Loans Held Loan Stock

[Pirate Smile]

Source: New York Times

By JONATHAN D. GLATER and KAREN W. ARENSON
Published: April 6, 2007
A senior official at the federal Education Department sold more than $100,000 in shares in a student loan company even as he was helping oversee lenders in the federal student loan program.

The official, Matteo Fontana, now general manager in a unit of the Office of Federal Student Aid, was identified yesterday from government documents as a stakeholder in the parent company of Student Loan Xpress who sold shares in 2003.

His involvement with the company emerged a day after a widening investigation into the student loan industry revealed that three senior financial aid officials at Columbia University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Southern California had also sold shares at the same time.

The stock sales raise questions of conflicts of interest on the part of university officials charged with giving students advice on financial aid and loans and a government official who helped oversee the industry.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/education/06loans.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[rodeodance]

1. join up to make a mint-------that is the mantra!

[fed-up]

2. why don't they just print their own money-whoops, they already do nt

[donkeyotay]

6. Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you. nt

[Kiouni]

3. didn't they make enough off credit cards?

I'm tired of the "American Dream" being synonymous with "pyramid scheme."

[1932]

4. The entire student loan industry is about making it as hard as possible for

young people to make it into the middle class, while ensuring that a lot of wealthy people get to become very very wealthy.

This is why I'm very suspicious of politicians on the left and right who think the greater availability of loans will solve students' problems and I like politicians very much who want to reduce the amount of borrowing students need to do to get through college.

[Eugene]

5. Education Official Put on Leave

Source: Associated Press

Education Official Put on Leave


Friday April 6, 2007 8:46 PM

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD

AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Department of Education official who owned about $100,000
worth of stock in a student loan company while overseeing lenders has been placed
on leave, a spokeswoman for the department said Friday.

Matteo Fontana, who oversees lenders and guarantee agencies that participate in the
Federal Family Education Loan Program, was placed on leave a day after his ownership
of the stock in Education Lending Group Inc. was disclosed.

The case has been referred to the inspector general, said department spokeswoman
Katherine McLane.


Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6538514,00.html