“Sallie Mae officials now concede that there are indeed tens of billions of dollars in savings to be had by eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program and moving to an all-direct lending system,” Higher Ed Watch reports. “Sallie Mae is pushing lawmakers to allow private lenders to continue marketing federal student loans to colleges as is done under the existing FFEL program … [ensuring that] college financial aid administrators remain in charge of choosing lenders to originate their students’ federal loans … Getting the college financial aid office’s imprimatur is extremely valuable to Sallie Mae because it gives the company a captive audience of students who usually stick to aid administrators’ recommendations. As a result, Sallie Mae doesn’t have to compete in a more open marketplace to win students’ business for private loans.”