Is PHEAA/AES Next?

In case you missed the news on student lenders, consider this. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is conducting a nation-wide investigation into student loan fraud and abuse - by lenders and college financial aid officers. Sallie Mae has been subpoenaed, some lenders have agreed to reimburse students and more investigations are coming.

The major complaint - that student loan companies paid financial aid officers with exotic trips, stock options, consulting contracts and other goodies to get on the preferred lender lists - controlled, of course, by the college financial aid officers.

So, is PHEAA/AES next? Didn't they just try to defend their lavish spending by saying they have to be competitive?

This is what Cuomo said in a news conference today:

"Cuomo said various officials have been examining the issue for about a year but his investigation was spurred after a lender came to him to complain about the domination of a few lenders in the lucrative market. Cuomo would not name the lender.
''The new lenders were saying because they weren't doing the conferences, they didn't have these relationships with financial aid offices, they weren't willing to do or hadn't been doing the financial aid incentive,'' Cuomo said. ''They couldn't even compete.''"

And where is our own Pennsylvania Attorney General in all this? Why no investigation? After all, two of the colleges allready named in the New York investigation are Pennsylvania institutions - the University of Pennsylvania and Widener.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Student-Loan-Probe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin