The director of financial aid at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee sits on the advisory board of Student Loan Xpress, a lender recommended by the university to student borrowers, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Jane Hojan-Clark, the director, confirmed in interviews with the newspaper that she had joined the advisory board after Student Loan Xpress was selected in 2005 as the university’s only preferred lender that year. She also said the company had paid for her to attend two conferences. Student Loan Xpress has been under scrutiny as part of a widening investigation of the student-loan industry. Three other members of its advisory board, all university student-aid administrators, and a federal official came under fire last week over revelations that they had owned shares in the lender’s previous parent company.

Ms. Hojan-Clark defended her relationship with the company, telling the newspaper that she had agreed to join the advisory board to share student needs with the company. She said that Student Loan Xpress had been chosen as a preferred lender based on its merits and that her position on the board posed no conflict of interest. (The university’s list of preferred lenders was expanded this year to include five other companies.)

The company manages more federal student loans at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee than at any other university, with a volume of $72.5-million in the 2006 fiscal year, the newspaper reported, citing Student Marketmeasure, a market research firm. More than half of the federal loans taken out by Wisconsin-Milwaukee students are handled by Student Loan Xpress.

Before the newspaper report came out, Kevin P. Reilly, president of the University of Wisconsin System, had announced that the university would review its student-loan practices. —Paul Fain