The government gives private lenders subsidies to market, process and distribute federal student loans. Some may have you believing that money goes straight into lenders pockets, but the truth is not only are those lenders incurring the costs of overhead, they are also giving a portion of those subsidies back to the student in the form of benefits. What benefits?

• Private lenders pay the origination fees on federal student loans—the Federal Direct Lending Program (FDLP) DOES NOT—and this can be thousands of dollars.

• Private lenders offer rebates for on-time payments—the FDLP DOES NOT.

• Private lenders offer interest rate reductions, sometimes up to 3 percent for on-time payments—the FDLP DOES NOT.

Why do private lenders give all this money back to students? Because the students are their CUSTOMERS, and to succeed in business the customer is king. If the government FORCES you to get money from the government, what happens? The student isn’t a customer anymore, he or she is just another cog in the wheel. Think about the customer service when you go to the DMV. Didn’t take long right? Right, because the DMV is part of the government, and it doesn’t offer customer service.

There is NO GUARANTEE that the subsidies the legislation proposes to stop paying Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) providers will go back to support scholarships and education. Ask yourself, and your senator, how do we know where the money will go?

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.