Passage 1 An Education in Student Loans 063
学生“难觅”低息贷款 《新闻周刊》2009-11-20

[00:00]Not long ago, low-interest student loans were as easy to come by
[00:06]as a pass to get out of gym class. But the economic downturn
[00:12]and ensuing credit crunch put an end to that. As relatively cheap,
[00:18]private bank and federally backed loans became harder to come by,
[00:25]some colleges, vocational schools, and online institutions filled
[00:30]the void by lending directly to students.
[00:34]Loans from traditional sources like Student Loan Marketing Corp.
[00:39]fell by more than 50 percent from 2007-08 to 2008-09
[00:50]after years of rapid growth,
[00:52]According to Westwood College in Torrance, Calif.
[00:57]Since they're largely unregulated and come from many sources,
[01:03]the rise of direct school-to-student loans is hard to estimate
[01:08]on a national level. For example, Westwood,
[01:13]which operates 17 campuses nationwide
[01:17]and offers online-degree programs as well,
[01:22]hands out direct loans to about a quarter of its 17,000 students.
[01:28]Like most privately held companies,
[01:31]it isn't required to disclose just how much money it loans out.
[01:38]But it's likely similar to schools like Corinthian Colleges,
[01:43]the Santa Ana, Calif.-based owner of Everest College and WyoTech chains,
[01:51]whose direct-lending division is expected to make $140 million
[01:58]for the school during the current fiscal year.
[02:03]Then there's ITT Educational Services, which, according to SEC filings,
[02:11]generated $52 million from its in-house student-loan program.
[02:20]Career Education Corp., which runs campuses under a variety of names,
[02:27]has expanded an existing program over the last year.
[02:32]The program now brings in about $34 million annually,
[02:39]still a small percentage of total revenues,
[02:43]which the school projects will be $1.75 billion for the year.
[02:50]That program charges interest rates between federal level
[02:55]and market rate for private loans.
[02:59]Consumer advocates see nothing wrong with schools
[03:03]that offer to help finance their students' educations.
[03:08]It's rates as much as 10 percent higher than federal student-loan rates
[03:14]that have them worried. Before the recession
[03:18]and credit crunch hit the student-loan market,
[03:22]it wasn't uncommon to see federally backed loans hovering around 3 percent
[03:28]or even lower. For qualified students,
[03:32]8 percent bank loans are still common. Mark Kantrowitz,
[03:38]publisher of Finaid.org, says it's hard to estimate the average
[03:45]private student-loan rate, but he said most loans are
[03:50]in the low double figures. Eighteen percent,
[03:54]however is near predatory and driven by a pure profit motive, says Loonin.