The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "student loans" ...
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Indentured Students
In a year-long series, Bloomberg detailed how the $1 trillion in outstanding student loans has imprisoned borrowers in a lifetime of debt, enabling a host of predatory collections practices, misleading financial-aid offers and out-of-control college spending -- while politicians for decades ignored mounting danger signals.
Tags: Student loans; debts; financial aids; college expenses; politicians
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Culture of Corruption in the California National Guard
The series showed that up to $100 milion in illegal or improper incentive payments were made to California National Guard members. The reporter found that funds meant to repay student loans and give cash bonuses to draw new recruits and entice Guard members to sign on for another stint went to soldiers who didn't qualify for the benefits.
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Grave Mistakes
An investigation showing how the database of deceased Americans created in 1980 under the Freedom of Information Act accidentally lists thousands of Americans as deceased, suffering frozen bank accounts, refused credit cards, denied student and mortgage loans, or arrests for suspected identity theft. It also exposes how identity thieves have learned to use the filed to commit numerous acts of identity theft for tax fraud.
Tags: identity theft; deceased; federal records; tax fraud
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Government Vastly Undercounts Defaults
The story explores the problem of student loan defaults, using unpublished data from the Education Department. It looks at what defaults costs borrowers and taxpayers and examines why for-profit colleges have the worst default rates.
Tags: default; student loan; Education Department; loan; university
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Self Dealing and Double Dipping in the California National Guard
When the U.S. government decided to boost incentives for National Guard service and combat veterans, no one envisioned a system in which a single bureaucrat could approve tens of millions of payments to officers and others who probably weren't eligible. Yet these and other apparent abuses occurred in California's National Guard even after flags were raised, and they gained top-level attention only after Sacramento Bee reporter Charles Piller revealed them. As Piller reported, up to $100 million in potentially illegal or improper incentive payments were made to service members, including Guard captains and majors who knew they were ineligible for disbursements.
Tags: Military; National Guard; California; Incentive; Payments; Benefits; Student Loans; Combat Veterans; War Profiteering; Finances; Salary
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Colleges Use Cheap Loans to Lure Stars to Faculty
“Although colleges and universities have often provided housing for officials to live on campuses, in recent years they have also begun to use low-interest or no-interest mortgage loans as a recruiting tool, sometimes from their own endowments”.
Tags: education; students; faculty members; professors; teachers; money; compensation; perks; tax forms
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Pennsylvania Open Records
WTAE-TV detailed the "wasteful and abusive spending of public monies" at "Pennsylvania's state-run student loan agency." These stories and the two accompanying lawsuits showed how difficult it was to access records in Pennsylvania and established the "good case law."
Tags: FOIA; open records; PHEAA; loans; public records; open records law; Jess Stairs
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Student Loan Scandal
The story package revealed "improper payoffs from a student loan company to college financial aid officers, as well as to a key official at the U.S. Department of Education who was in charge of overseeing the lenders that participate in the federal guaranteed student-loan program."
Tags: student loans; improper payoffs; college financial aid; lenders
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Sallie Mae
Sallie Mae, started in 1972 as a government sponsored enterprise meant to "encourage private banks to loan to students who were considered to be a credit risk," pushed became a private lender in 1997. Since then, the stock price "has gone up almost 2,000 percent" and company executives have become among the highest paid in the nation. CBS' 60 Minutes investigates, and explores the question of whether it's appropriate for Sallie Mae to act as both a lender and a collector.
Tags: Sallie Mae; student loans; student loan default; Higher Education Act; U.S. Department of Education
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School's pursuit of profit leaves students behind
This series is centered on the business of for-profit education. The first of two main articles took a broad look at the issue, and at Leigh Valley College in particular. The second focused on the school's financial impact on students. It examined the relationship between the country's no.2 education company, Career Education Corp, and the country's no.1 student loan provider, Sallie Mae. The article concluded that LVC is setting students up for a spiral of debt. Subsequent articles followed the impact of the first two.
Tags: tertiary education; Leigh Valley College; Career Education Corp.; Sallie Mae; student debt; State Department of Education