Well, I am writing this on 8-8-08 (the start of the Olympics) and the craziness of this summer’s Dog Days continues. Consider the following:

• Brett Favre is now a Jet after a protracted soap opera with the Packers
• Manny Ramirez, formerly of the Red Sox, is now a Dodger;
• Paris Hilton puts out the best political ad of the season that sounds, in some degree, intelligent and reasonable
• The Governor of Massachusetts, Deval L. Patrick, brings Mr. Cuomo’s investigations full circle, as shown in a Chronicle of Higher Education article.

The Chronicle article indicates that the Governor has asked Massachusetts colleges to invest in the state-owned Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority (MEFA) so thousands of the state’s students can continue to receive student loans. MEFA recently suspended its federal and private student loan operations. The Governor’s request appears to be a clear violation of Mr. Cuomo’s conflict of interest guidelines established last year. Nevertheless, the Governor’s actions are considered commendable by many.

So what do you think? Should colleges and universities invest in what some would say is a noble action for Massachusetts’ students, or do conflict of interest concerns outweigh those sentiments? Is the pendulum swinging back to some uncomfortable arrangements between schools and lenders? Or, has public policy moved well beyond?

(And speaking of Mr. Cuomo, just what is he planning to do with the funds he collected last year? My suggestion? Work with NASFAA to target those funds to enhance access and financial literacy initiatives!)

Now I’m trying to figure out whom the next celebrity may be that will make the news. Enjoy what’s left of your summer!

Last weekend, I couldn’t help but notice the full page My Rich Uncle ad in the New York Times. To use their words, My Rich Uncle is “a different kind of loan company.”

Boy ain’t that the truth!

Their ad has a middle-aged man standing with dazed look on what I assumed to be a golf course landscape with the caption reading, “I Didn’t Use My Brain, I Went Right to the Financial Aid Office.”

In other words, “If you go to the financial aid office, you must be stupid.”

(Because the top of the gentleman’s head was sawed off, I found myself thinking “Where did his brain go?” but I’ll solve that mystery another time.)

The remainder of the MRU ad reads:

“Most families aren’t prepared for what college costs today. So why do they check their brains at the door when it’s time to get a student loan? Smart families know that the financial aid office isn’t their only option. It takes fifteen minutes to save thousands of dollars on a student loan with My Rich Uncle. That’s probably why more and more people are learning that thinking saves thousands at MyRichUncle.com”

As one who has worked as a financial aid administrator for over 25 years, let me first say that I believe that families are “using their brains” when they seek help from the office that is responsible for helping them find financial resources to attend college.

I have absolutely nothing against the loan products that MRU offers. Any lender that can offer a stable benefit to students is welcome to do so. Financial aid offices do not discriminate against any loan provider that can offer low-cost loans to students.

The real issue at hand is the advertising used by MRU and other direct-to-consumer loan marketers that attempt to create mistrust between financial aid offices and families. It’s destructive, abhorrent, and downright dirty, and ultimately it harms the customers they’re supposed to be serving.

The financial aid process can be challenging. MRU and other DTC marketers make it even more complicated by boiling down all financial aid to student loans. Contrary to popular belief, the College Board reports that by far the largest form of financial aid in the country comes from institutional grants and tuition discounts, not loans. The very first step in a student’s quest for financial aid must be the financial aid office – plain and simple. Students who are discouraged from reaching out to the financial aid office could potentially lose out on all sorts of financial aid.

It’s simply an inappropriate business model to exploit a family’s apprehension about college costs in an attempt to increase loan volume. Creating distrust between a family and the financial aid office is counterproductive to students and certainly a loan company must realize that a healthy loan market requires a healthy and fully funded need-based aid program first, so that low-income students and families can avoid loans altogether if possible.

If I had the money, I’d run a companion ad. The ad would consist of me giving the “brainless” man his brain back to help him make informed decisions using all of the financial aid information that we provide. It has always been my firm belief—and this has been confirmed in my travels the past year–that the 14,000 financial aid professionals across this nation are, and will continue to be, the most trustworthy source in helping students and families.

Also, as a parent, when I read an ad of this nature, my first thought is, “If this is true, why aren’t other lenders marketing in this inflammatory manner?

I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Day’s letter that encourages each of us “to oppose on every level the ultimate harm done to students and families by advertisements that intentionally cause families to distrust the financial aid office.”

What are your thoughts? What, if anything, should be done about direct-to-consumer student loan marketing?

Last week the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting piece titled “Spitzer’s Media Enablers.” The article discussed the fall of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and how the situation “holds many lessons … but don’t expect the press corps to delve into the biggest lesson of all … its own role as an enabler.”

It was refreshing to see the author, Kimberly Strassel’s comment that “Journalism has many functions, but perhaps the most important is keep tabs on public officials. That duty is even more vital concerning government positions that are subject to few other checks and balances. Chief among those is the prosecutor, who uses his awesome state power to punish, even destroy, private citizens.”

The article goes on to highlight out how Spitzer “played the media like a Stradivarius. He knew the sort of storyline they’d be sympathetic to, and he spun it. … Mr. Spitzer’s main offense as a prosecutor is that he violated the basic rules of fairness and due process. Innocent until proven guilty: the right to your day in court. The Spitzer method was to target public companies and officials, leak allegations … to a compliant press … then move in for a quick settlement and kill. There was rarely a trial, fair or unfair, involved. … Politicians don’t exist to be idolized by the press, at least not any press corps doing its job. ”

As I’ve traveled the country these past two years, our members have privately shared some of these same concerns about “media enabling” leading to a guilty until proven innocent attitude without any sort of trial.Unfortunately, students seem to be the ones who have been negatively affected by this type of journalism, whether they are driven to private loans because distrust of the financial aid office has been artificially manufactured, or they are driven to panic that student loans won’t be available in the fall.

The challenge for our profession is to publicize the everyday story of financial aid administrators helping students. This way, if the profession is disparaged, people will be skeptical about negative reports because they have a positive view of the profession and all the good work we do. This is a formidable challenge because this story does not have the same media-appeal as a report that the sky is falling and student loans will not be available in the fall.What are your expectations of the press as it relates to our profession and helping students and families? How can we get our story out so people have an accurate perception about what we do?