Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) met with SIUC Financial Aid Director Pamela Britton Wednesday to discuss the financial aid cuts decided by Congress last week and the introduction of the direct loan program to SIUC.

Under the new program, the federal government loans the money directly to qualified students, eliminating the banks and about $1 billion in fees paid to those banks by the federal government every year, according to Simon.

Simon said 40 percent of all colleges and universities in the country will participate in the program this year, and hopes more will follow in later years.

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This is to the credit of (SIUC) President Guyon and Pam Britton, he said. It is easy for a school to get into a rut, just as an individual gets in a rut, just continuing what they have.

They have chosen to look for better ways of doing things. The direct loan program is better for the students, better for the schools and better for the tax payers.

Britton said the new direct loan program has already streamlined the application process, allowing the financial aid office to process more students than ever before.

We have already packaged 2,000 more students than we ever have by this time of the year, and this is a direct result of the direct loan program, she said.

We hope that the lines we have experienced because of students who need to come to Woody Hall to finalize loans will be shorter, if not non-existent this fall.

see SIMON, page 7