一本教会你“做对”题的6级阅读书 day4 passage1
Passage 1 An Education in Student Loans 063
学生“难觅”低息贷款 《新闻周刊》2009-11-20
Not long ago, low-interest student loans were as easy to come by
as a pass to get out of gym class. But the economic downturn
and ensuing credit crunch put an end to that. As relatively cheap,
private bank and federally backed loans became harder to come by,
some colleges, vocational schools, and online institutions filled
the void by lending directly to students.
Loans from traditional sources like Student Loan Marketing Corp.
fell by more than 50 percent from 2007-08 to 2008-09
after years of rapid growth,
According to Westwood College in Torrance, Calif.
Since they're largely unregulated and come from many sources,
[01:03]the rise of direct school-to-student loans is hard to estimate
[01:08]on a national level. For example, Westwood,
[01:13]which operates 17 campuses nationwide
[01:17]and offers online-degree programs as well,
[01:22]hands out direct loans to about a quarter of its 17,000 students.
[01:28]Like most privately held companies,
[01:31]it isn't required to disclose just how much money it loans out.
[01:38]But it's likely similar to schools like Corinthian Colleges,
[01:43]the Santa Ana, Calif.-based owner of Everest College and WyoTech chains,
[01:51]whose direct-lending division is expected to make $140 million
[01:58]for the school during the current fiscal year.
[02:03]Then there's ITT Educational Services, which, according to SEC filings,
[02:11]generated $52 million from its in-house student-loan program.
[02:20]Career Education Corp., which runs campuses under a variety of names,
[02:27]has expanded an existing program over the last year.
[02:32]The program now brings in about $34 million annually,
[02:39]still a small percentage of total revenues,
[02:43]which the school projects will be $1.75 billion for the year.
[02:50]That program charges interest rates between federal level
[02:55]and market rate for private loans.
[02:59]Consumer advocates see nothing wrong with schools
[03:03]that offer to help finance their students' educations.
[03:08]It's rates as much as 10 percent higher than federal student-loan rates
[03:14]that have them worried. Before the recession
[03:18]and credit crunch hit the student-loan market,
[03:22]it wasn't uncommon to see federally backed loans hovering around 3 percent
[03:28]or even lower. For qualified students,
[03:32]8 percent bank loans are still common. Mark Kantrowitz,
[03:38]publisher of Finaid.org, says it's hard to estimate the average
[03:45]private student-loan rate, but he said most loans are
[03:50]in the low double figures. Eighteen percent,
[03:54]however is near predatory and driven by a pure profit motive, says Loonin.