Political Quotes

“what a difference 6 weeks makes. On March 14, under Mr. Miller's leadership, the Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on the question of student loan availability. And at that time, Secretary Spellings from the Department of Education came in and said that the administration was merely ``monitoring the situation,'' and expressed some diffidence and confusion about whether or not in fact the Federal Government really had a role to play in terms of being lender of last resort. During the last 6 weeks, what we have seen is the collapse of Bear Stearns, we have seen lenders withdrawing from the student loan market, and a clear signal that the subprime mortgage crisis is in fact extending to the student loan market. In Connecticut, the Connecticut Commissioner of Higher Education Mike Meotti and the Director of Financial Aid at University of Connecticut, who I met with, confirmed the fact that they were seeing some withdrawal from the market and a need to step up their activity in terms of giving students more help as they enter a very challenging year, again, because of what is happening in the financial markets.”