Incomplete Assessment of Student Lenders’ ‘Red Lining’

On November 16th, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report that it was unable to assess the extent to which providers of private student loans used non-financial factors — such as race, gender or institution type — to decide which students to loan to. The report, which was mandated by the Higher Education Opportunity Act, was requested by lawmakers concerned about reports that lenders were engaging in a form of “redlining”: cutting back their lending or charging significantly higher rates to students from historically black or community colleges because they were assumed to be worse credit risks. The full story can be found at InsideHigherEducation.