Watching Spellings

From Politico's blog, The Crypt:

May 16, 2008

Miller, Kennedy ask GAO to Watch Spellings on Student Loans

Congressional Democrats, who have been skeptical in the past at whether Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has taken sufficient action to protect student loans from the credit markets' woes, have asked the Government Accountability Office to monitor the Bush administration's management of the issue.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) who chairs the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions committee and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) who chairs the Education and Labor committee in the House, sent the letter to the GAO Thursday.

Miller and Kennedy co-authored the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act to make certain that students are not prevented from attending college next fall due to unavailability of private loans for tuition.

The letter requests that the GAO monitor the administration's oversight of school's transitioning from the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) into the Direct Loan Program which is federally run.

A request for comment from the Department of Education has not yet been returned.

UPDATE: Education Department spokeswoman Samara Yudof e-mails:, "[We] are working across the administration on an efficient and effective approach that can be implemented as quickly as possible to ensure that students continue to have access to Federal student aid to help pay for college."