Department of Education Executive Puts Head in Sand, Averts Trainwreck

Oh....our doom and gloom predictions from the past few days.....nevermind.....the Department of Education says everything is going to be ok. From a story in todays New York Times:

The under secretary for higher education, Sara Martinez Tucker, said in a
telephone interview Wednesday, “We have today 2,253 lenders that are active
in originating loans, so to the extent that some lenders pull away form some
markets or some schools, other lenders have been able to” step up.

We don't know who Sara is, but we'll do a little web-based research and see what we come up with. But we think she's not only drinking the Kool-Aid, but dishing it out as well. There probably are 2,253 Department of Education issued Lender ID's out there. We'll go to Vegas on the over/under that there's less than 100 active in FFELP today. We think it's far less than 100, actually, but the odds maker looked at us funny when we offered our original number.

We're hearing quite the opposite of what these "experts" are reporting. Schools are screaming that they can't get loans funded. Lenders have layed off thousands of processors, account execs, and managers. Warehouse lines of credit are non-existent for student loans. The credit markets cannot sell the paper for securitized transactions.

We're gonna keep our eye on Sara. There will likely be some really good quotes coming from her once the administration lets her go later on this summer.