At Student-Aid Conference, Talk of Debt, Ethics, and Salaries...

First, their offices' relationships with lenders were called into question. And more recently, they've had to contend with the credit crunch and, for some, the loss of loan providers. Those issues were understandably rehashed here at the annual conference of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

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Panelists from the lending industry and the U.S. Department of Education were pleased that Congress quickly passed a bailout bill (HR 5715), which is expected to ensure that every qualified student has access to federal loans this fall.

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Officials bemoaned the loss of the student-loan providers that have left the federal program—with one exception: MyRichUncle, the private lender that sharply criticized college student-aid offices in its advertisements. Its departure was applauded during the opening session and seen as a bright spot by many.

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The fallout from subprime lending, however, is making private loans much harder to come by—especially for students and families with bad credit. And officials here worried that families might not be aware of the change until they try to get a private loan and are turned down.

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Simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, is on the table, as is making some tax credits refundable, which would extend the benefits to students whose families do not earn enough to owe federal income taxes.

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Many student-aid offices give students a "preferred-lender list," which reduces the number of lenders a college is likely to deal with each year, making choosing a lender less complicated.

But the rules have changed since Andrew M. Cuomo, New York's attorney general, began investigating the sometimes too-close relationships between colleges and preferred lenders in 2007. While the new regulations can help prevent bias in the selection of lenders, they have some aid administrators afraid to give students any advice.

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Last year, student-aid administrators at the dean or vice-president level earned a median of $110,000 at four-year public institutions, $83,177 at four-year private colleges, and $75,384 at two-year publics.

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The much larger category of student-aid directors earned a median salary of $62,800, the survey found, though salary also varied by institution type. The median salary was highest ($74,110) at four-year public colleges and universities, followed by two-year public colleges at $61,000. Directors at four-year private institutions earned $60,710, while those at two-year private colleges made the least ($54,000).

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