The Loan Arranger Is Retiring

It seems like such a simple prospect:  with the cost of college skyrocketing, the government was paying $70 billion a year to banks to make student loans (and profit from them) instead of using that money to make actual student loans.

One of the provisions in the House and Senate compromise reconciliation bill to improve HCR fixes that prospect, and the banks (and the GOP) are in mourning.

Banks and other private lenders are about to lose a $70 billion-a-year student loan business, part of a massive overhaul of college assistance programs that has received an unexpected boost from President Barack Obama's health care success.

Industry lobbyists have watched helplessly as Democrats and the Obama administration appear on the verge of shifting student lending from private banks to the federal government.

Under the measure, private banks would no longer get fees from the government for acting as middlemen in loans to low- and middle-income students. With those savings, the government would increase Pell Grants to needy students and make it easier for workers burdened by student loans to pay them back.

Well gosh, that seems like a win-win there, right?  Haven't we given the banks enough money?  

And just think, we couldn't have done this without Scott Brown.

In an unusual twist, the fate of the student loan overhaul went from certain death in the Senate to certain victory thanks to Republican Scott Brown's election in January in the race for the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Until then, the legislation was not moving in the Senate because it lacked 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But after Brown's election, Democrats decided that their health care initiative could pass only if Congress approved a companion bill that resolved differences between the House and Senate. That expedited measure requires only a simple majority vote.

The companion bill became a home to the student lending proposal and gave it a new lease on life.

Thanks, Cosmo!  You're turning into a real winner here...for the Dems.  Keep it up!