2Futuro is pleased to announce the awards of two scholarships of $1,000 each to Mayra Alvarez, a student at California State University, Los Angeles, and Jason Gates, a student at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. They are the first recipients of scholarships awarded through random monthly drawings that 2Futuro conducts [...]

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo urged Congress to step up supervision of private education lending and said he is widening his investigation of the $85 billion-a-year industry to examine loan criteria.
Private lending is more subject to abuse because it isn’t covered by anti kickback rules in government loan programs, Cuomo told the Senate’s banking [...]

Sallie Mae, the nation’s leading saving- and paying-for-college company, awarded $25,000 to 11-year-old Gracie Maddox on “Dr. Phil” to help pay for her college education. The presentation is part of Sallie Mae’s ongoing awareness campaign to remind students and families that college is possible. Dr. Phil McGraw presented the award to Gracie on behalf of [...]

Investigations by U.S. lawmakers into the student loan industry expanded as Reps George Miller, D-Calif., and chairman of the House education committee, sent a letter to the inspector general of the Education Department asking for a review of the department’s policies against conflicts of interest and the financial disclosure forms of employees overseeing the federal [...]

The chairman of the U.S. Senate’s education committee said on Thursday he has written to the heads of two major student lenders over concerns about loan collection tactics, opening a new line of inquiry in a fast-expanding scandal in the student loan business.
“I am concerned that several private lenders may be engaging in harsh and [...]

Fitch rates the following student loan-backed notes issued by SLM Student Loan Trust 2006-7:
* $159,000,000 class A-1 floating-rate notes ‘AAA’;
* $406,000,000 class A-2 floating-Rate notes ‘AAA’;
* $175,000,000 class A-3 floating-rate notes ‘AAA’;
* $457,000,000 class A-4 floating-rate notes ‘AAA’;
[...]

Fitch rates the following floating-rate student loan-backed notes issued by SLM Student Loan Trust 2006-6:
* US$501,000,000 class A-1 ‘AAA’;
* US$280,000,000 class A-2 ‘AAA’;
* US$254,843,000 class A-3 ‘AAA’;
* EUR372,000,000 class A-4 ‘AAA’;
* US$46,666,000 class B ‘AAA’.
The [...]

Fitch Ratings has issued a presale report on SLM Student Loan Trust, Series 2006-5.
The presale report is available to all investors on Fitch’s corporate site, ‘www.fitchratings.com’. For more information about Fitch’s comprehensive subscription service Fitch Research, which includes all presale reports, surveillance, and credit reports on more than 20 asset-backed securities (ABS) asset classes, including [...]

A year ago, hundreds of thousands of students rushed to take advantage of a loophole allowing them to consolidate their student loans before they graduated and lock in the lowest interest rates in the history of the Federal Family Education Loan Program.
Now the loophole is closing, and while rates have moved higher, students and parents [...]

Student loan interest rates will climb 1.84 percentage points this summer — one of the largest increases in the history of the federally guaranteed student loan program. Students, graduates and parents who have student loans can avoid the rate hike if they apply to consolidate their student loans by June 30.
“Student loan consolidation is the [...]