Washington — Twenty-one Democratic lawmakers have urged the Bush administration to help the tottering student-loan market so that the credit crunch does not affect students’ ability to go to college.

The members of the House of Representatives sent a letter on Friday to Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education, and Henry Paulson, the treasury secretary, asking them to act quickly.

The letter came at the end of a week of new signs of trouble in the student-loan industry. Some companies have said they will stop offering federally subsidized loans; others plan to be more restrictive. And earlier this week, the State of Michigan announced it was ending a program for offering private student loans.

The letter from the Congressional Democrats did not lay out specifically what actions they thought the administration should take, but suggested working with the Federal Reserve and the Federal Home Loan Bank System to make sure cash was available to steady the student-loan market.

A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department told the Associated Press the department was reviewing the letter and continues to monitor all markets, including the student-loan market, closely. —Scott Smallwood