Over three months ago, reports of unscrupulous behavior by college financial-aid advisers surfaced. The controversy stemmed from advisers who gained financially by referring specific lenders to students. This clear violation of a conflict of interest ethical standard by university officials raised many concerns among students who feared that they had been ill-advised for similar reasons.
However, the UC is to be commended for the steps it has taken since the incident. Not only has the UC system handled the situation well, it has also introduced policies to ensure the incident would never occur for students here.
The UC initiated an internal investigation to assure that the practices used by financial aid officials within the UC system were free from the violations of conflict-of-interest ethics seen at other universities.
Once the internal audit was completed, there was no finding of any personal-financial relationships between lenders and financial aid officials.
This was a big relief to UC students, and most apprehensions were eased upon its announcement. But our UC officials went beyond expectations by taking steps to prevent future incidents of questionable ethics from happening within the UC system. In addition, officials also provided further evidence of no such wrongdoing within the UC system.
Several days ago, UC officials announced the fruits of their initiative to build an accountability system and mandating new policies.
Given that student costs have been increasing steadily, the efforts of UC officials alone are encouraging enough to make students feel secure and trusting when taking out a loan, especially in the wake of the unnerving revelations of unethical bribes and gifts being handed out in other academic institutions in the country.
The new policy establishes restrictions on the relationships between financial aid officials and lenders to prevent conflicts of interest.
Concrete prohibitions such as restricting the university from receiving or accepting payments or other benefits in exchange for becoming listed on a preferred lenders list clearly identifies and holds individuals accountable who do not abide by seemingly obvious conflict-of-interest policies.
And if there existed any doubt as to what a conflict of interest is, the UC has mandated a yearly refresher course on what constitutes a conflict of interest for all financial aid officials.
By regularly spelling out policies to financial aid officials, no financial aid adviser or school official can rationally expect to get away with inside deals with lenders.
Loan companies should aim to help students in a time of financial crisis while the school is simultaneously advising the student as to which loan companies are reliable and trustworthy. When there is a break in this cycle of trust, someone must take action to rebuild trust by ensuring fairness in the system.
In implementing these new policies, the UC has done a commendable job of addressing concerns, learning from the mistakes of others, and setting up a system that prevents these types of incidents from ever happening to our students in the future.