Duncan Ramps Up Criticism of Student-Loan Companies

With the Senate still stalling on legislation to end the bank-based system of delivering federally subsidized student loans, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is unloading some of his harshest rhetoric against the loan companies lobbying against the measure. In a statement quoted by The Washington Post, the secretary said executives of the industry leader, Sallie Mae, “have paid themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in the last decade while teachers, nurses, and scientists — the backbone of the new economy — face crushing debt because of runaway college tuition costs.”