U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings will appear before a congressional committee Thursday. Harsh questioning is expected over a scandal sweeping through the college student loan business.
The $85 billion student loan industry has been all over the news this week. Investigations have revealed that some universities may have gotten kickbacks from big lenders, and that the government was overpaying some of these companies to the tune of hundreds of millions of bucks, and that Sallie Mae was getting special treatment from its pals in The Department of Education, and that Wolfgang Puck is responsible for thousands of people defaulting on their student loans.
As it happens, Margaret Spellings (the most appropriately named Secretary of Education EVER.... Seriously, Spellings? That's perfect) was already scheduled to be on Capitol Hill today to talk to the House Education and Labor Committee about the "No Child Left Behind" reading program Reading First — but you can be sure she's gonna get an earful about her department's oversight of the student loan industry.
Yesterday the House overwhelmingly passed The Student Loan Sunshine Act which is aimed at bringing a little transparency to the relationships between the loan industry and the schools that use them.
Much like that Organic Chem final we took sophomore year, we found all these story threads to be utterly confusing, so we called Anya Kamenetz, author of Generation Debt for the Cliff's Notes version. Plus we talked to Greg Treece — an occupational therapist in Illinois who is dealing with the hassle of crushing student loan debt.
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And we want to know what you all think about this loan brouhaha. You have loan debt? How much? Tell us your story.
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