Scammie Mae

Scammie Mae and these exploitive sweatshops that feed off her swarth of destruction need to be stopped.

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Recent law grad:

I wish they had wined and dined me before they fucked me with these loans.

One student loan company took university financial aid directors on a junket to Disney World. Another paid $500 to be placed on a school's list of recommended lenders. And others showered tequila, wine and golf outings on college aid officers.Those were among what Senate investigators called illegal enticements from loan companies to university officials to drum up business, according to a nearly 600-page report issued yesterday.

The report offers the most detailed evidence yet that lenders offered perks to colleges with the explicit goal of persuading schools to steer students their way. Some employees described the arrangements as quid pro quos. The revelations came as Johns Hopkins University agreed to pay about $1.13 million to settle an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo (D) into the school's financial aid operation. Previously released documents from the Senate investigation show that former university aid director Ellen Frishberg accepted more than $130,000 from eight lending industry companies during her tenure. Johns Hopkins, which has denied wrongdoing, agreed in the settlement to have its financial aid practices monitored for five years by the attorneys general of New York and Maryland.

Frishberg is the focus of a criminal and civil investigation by Cuomo's office. The review could result in charges of fraud, bribery, conspiracy or all three, according to people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Frishberg did not return calls seeking comment. The Senate findings are the latest disclosure of questionable financial arrangements between lenders, universities and regulators in the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry. "This investigative report demonstrates that inappropriate marketing practices, conflicts of interest, and back-room deals are found all too frequently in the student loan industry," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the education committee, which conducted the investigation, said in a statement. "The findings underscore the urgent need for systemic reform in the student loan system."

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Another story. You often hear many similar tales of desperation down in the bowls of the document review basement:

I made a mistake and had two children without being married. Single mothers like me are vilified in this culture anyway, but I wanted to be different so I went back to college when my daughter was 2. I graduated law school in 2003 and passed the bar a year later. I financed my entire education with student loans. I had to take the bar exam twice so I took out a sallie mae law student loan to exist and support two children while i took three months off to study. When I finally passed I couldn't find a job and I have been living pretty much by the skin of my teeth for four years now. My beef with Sallie Mae is the fact that my student loans have already increased by $20,000 in the past three years. I have explained that I have no job and no steady income and offered to pay a smaller amount than the $450. they were demanding a month (as much as my rent). I said I would try to pay $150, to just pay something, but they turned their noses up at that. After going around and around, they were willing to give me a deferment, but you have to pay for it, a $150.00 "processing fee". I told them that I receive food stamps, which is pitiful enough, but they don't give a crap and call me probably 8 times a day, as well as harrassing my mother, my cosigner, who is 76 years old and lives on her social security. And are they rude. I try to keep in regular contact with them because I intend to someday pay them back, but everytime I call them or answer their calls their people are so shockingly rude it makes my heart pound.