Both chambers of New York’s Legislature voted unanimously today to approve the first proposed state law in the nation requiring colleges and student-loan companies to abide by a code of conduct. The measure would set in statute many of the same rules for doing business that New York’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, has persuaded more than a dozen colleges around the nation to adopt to settle his complaints that the institutions or their employees had received inappropriate financial inducements to steer students to certain lenders.

Under the New York legislation, which now awaits the signature of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, lenders would be prohibited from giving gifts to, or sharing revenue with, colleges or their employees, and the employees and agents of the lending companies would not be allowed to pose as college employees or to staff financial-aid offices. Colleges would be barred from accepting money or gifts from lenders in exchange for recommending the company to students, and college employees would no longer be compensated for serving on lenders’ advisory boards. At the behest of Sheldon Silver, speaker of the State Assembly, the bill, introduced last month, was amended to allow colleges to accept philanthropic donations from lenders as long as the gifts were disclosed and did not result in preferential treatment for the loan companies.

Mr. Cuomo cheered the measure’s passage, saying it would give New Yorkers “confidence in knowing that state law will be on their side in dealing with the college-loan industry.” —Peter Schmidt