A controversial recommendation on private lending has been stricken from the latest draft report of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

The recommendation, which first appeared in a draft released last week, urged students to take greater advantage of private loans, suggesting that “wider recognition and wider utilization of these options by many families” would free up “scarce public funds to focus on aid for economically disadvantaged students and families” (The Chronicle, August 7).

The panel’s chairman, Charles Miller, who had inserted the recommendation into the draft without checking first with the full commission, said he had decided to remove it after discovering the “anxiety” it provoked among some commissioners and higher-education lobbyists.

“It didn’t have a lot of specifics, and I think some people misunderstood the recommendation,” he said. “I didn’t want to have a dispute over it.”

A longer article on this development in the commission’s work will appear tomorrow on this Web site.