F-ing students!

The headline for Ron Lieber’s “Danger Lurks When Shopping for Student Loans” (NYT, 26 July, ’08) is neutered in a typical way: it should read “Predatory Student Loansters *#@% Your Children for Shopping Around.” This isn’t a diffuse, inevitable danger, and it definitely isn’t “lurking”: it’s a morass of meticulously developed analyses and techniques implemented through a public–private field dominated by profit-maximizers. And no one is responsible, of course. Now, no amount of market-mongering can excuse preying on young people (an 18-year-old’s credit score?) or anyone else seeking to educate him- or herself. The only way to stop it—this is the received wisdom, yes?—is by deterring it. So what would be an effective deterrent for the systematic financial exploitation of young people? Environmental crime could serve as a useful analogy.

(Some of the other GSEs aren’t doing so well; so when will the credit crunch topple the Student Loan Marketing Corporation a/k/a “Sallie Mae”?)