As part of the Democrats' 100-Hour, Six in 06 plan, the House of Representatives passed a significant cut in rates for student loans, making college more accessible for young Americans. The legislation, however, has not yet been passed by the Senate, and if the big lending lobby has its way, such legislation will be held up indefinitely in the upper chamber of Congress, as The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports.

Move over, tobacco lawyers. Lobbyists representing banks and other providers of federally subsidized student loans may now have the toughest job in town.

Their task is to convince members of Congress and the Bush administration to preserve existing subsidies for federal loan programs. Both Democrats and Republicans want to find a way to pay for programs designed to help make college more affordable for students and their families -- and those very subsidies may be cut to produce savings for other programs, such as Pell Grants.

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Companies such as Nelnet, one of a handful of companies that dominate the federally subsidized student-loan business, appear to have stepped up their lobbying efforts in the wake of the difficult environment.

Last December, after Congress trimmed $20 billion from existing federal subsidies for student loans as part of the Deficit Reduction Act, Nelnet hired the bipartisan firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates. Senate records show that the lobbyists registered by Quinn Gillespie who work for Nelnet include Alison Giles, a former chief of staff on the Ways and Means Committee for then-Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), and Kevin Kayes, a former chief counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Nelnet and the lending industry as a whole indeed have their work cut out for them on this measure. When the legislation came before the House back in January, all Democrats voting and close to two-thirds of Republicans voting supported the rate decrease for student loans. Still, they do have a significant amount of political capital stored up with Republicans which they might be able to put to use in the Senate. According to a Los Angeles Times study I referenced in a post back in November, Nelnet was the largest supporter of the NRCC in the 2005-2006 cycle and 62 percent of Sallie Mae Pac donations went to Republicans, to take just two examples. So will Republicans in the Senate cave to their big supporters in the student loan industry? Will the Bush White House, which has already shown a willingness to raise taxes on college students, bend to pressure from Nelnet and others by vetoing such legislation? The fact that the Department of Education under President Bush has already allowed Nelnet to keep close to $300 million in improper subsidies, according to a report today by Jonathan D. Glater in The New York Times, does not instill much confidence that they will do the right thing.

Update [2007-3-8 20:48:27 by Jonathan Singer]: Just to add one more thing, it's no small coincidence that younger voters were the most likely to vote Democratic in 2006, according to exit polling, with 18- to 29-year-olds backing Democratic House candidates over Republicans by a 60 percent to 38 percent margin.