Local News in Brief : Mission Viejo: : College District Trustees Oppose Loan Proposal
Trustees of Saddleback Community College District have sent a resolution to the U.S. Department of Education objecting to a proposed crackdown on student loans.
Last year, then-Education Secretary William Bennett proposed a ban on most federally backed loans to students if the students attend a college that has a high default rate on paying back the federal Guaranteed Student Loans.
But that proposal unfairly penalizes colleges, which neither make the loans nor collect them, trustees said.
Bennett’s proposal, which is still pending before the U.S. Education Department, called for a cutoff of all federally backed loans to a college that has a default rate of 20% or higher. Most California community colleges, including Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College, have default rates higher than 20% for that type of student loan.
The Saddleback trustees, in their resolution, noted that “the colleges do not award or collect on (federal) loans to students yet are held accountable for student defaults.”
They added that all student loans to a college should not be threatened because of “perceived inadequacies” of one type of student loan.
And current and future students should not be penalized because of non-payment mistakes made by past students, the resolution said.
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