No funds to lend to 40,000 students

Beth Healy, Boston Globe:

The Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority yesterday said it will not be able to provide student loans this fall for the first time in its 26-year history, leaving more than 40,000 families without an important source of tuition funds just weeks before college classes begin.

The nonprofit lending authority, which last school year provided $510 million in loans, said it has been unable to secure funding to provide private student loans due to the ongoing turmoil in the nation's credit markets. The agency had already disclosed in April that it would no longer offer federally backed student loans.

It is now contacting the tens of thousands of students to whom it has made loans in the past, urging them to seek other options.

"As a result of our problems and the continued dislocation of the capital markets, we have been unable to raise funds for the coming academic year," said Thomas M. Graf, the authority's executive director. ...

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: Democrats, the issue has been handed into your lap. What you do with it, or don't do with it, is your problem. This is the kind of issue the public is worried about. This is the real-world impact of the chaos the Republicans have wreaked in our economy. And ABC reports that this, not surprisingly, goes far beyond Texas.