Most young people in college know this one simple truth: financing an education is hard. There’s federal financial aid, private college aid, and there are a handful of predatory lenders out there locking desperate college students into loans with ridiculous interest rates that rival credit card companies.

But in Montana, we’re fortunate to have a beacon of light in the world of student loans. The Student Assistance Foundation (SAF) is a non-profit organization that helps Montana College students finance their educations. Their mission is “to provide students and families with the knowledge and tools to finance and pursue their post- secondary education.”

SAF has saved my butt on several occasions. My education took several roads. In the beginning, I started at the University of Montana as an in-state student, and my dad wrote the checks every semester until I was a junior. The catalog from my freshman year estimates tuition for 1 year as $7192.50. This past year, the year after I graduated, tuition has almost doubled, with a yearly estimate of $12,012. I also took a jaunt back east and attended a private school for 5 semesters before coming back to UM to finish. SAF owns my loans from the second time I came to UM, and they helped me consolidate all my loans from Sallie Mae, locking in an interest rate that’s almost too good to be true. They will save me thousands of dollars during the life of my loans. I heard a friend of mine even got locked into an interest rate of 3% for the whole term of her loan!

They’ve been in the news a lot lately, and I wonder: Who’s going to save them, like they’ve saved me? The hard economic times have reduced their ability to help Montana students. In early April, they faced their first net operating loss, which meant cutting benefits to student loan borrowers by 3$ million. Charles S. Johnson first brought my attention to this in the Billings Gazette.  According to the article, “The credit and liquidity crisis on Wall Street has increased MHESAC's borrowing costs on its outstanding financings by more than $14 million in the past nine months, said Jim Stipcich, president and chief executive officer of the Student Assistance Foundation.”

Chairman of the Board Fred Flanders said: "MHESAC remains committed to helping Montana students access post-secondary education. However, the reality is that the current climate within the industry is making it increasingly difficult for us to provide our usual high level of borrower benefit products. At this time, we are taking necessary measures to ensure continued educational funding for Montana students."

Some of the great things the SAF did when I borrowed money for school included picking up the loan origination fees. So, if you borrowed $10,000 from them, the full $10,000 went to your educational costs. That’s looking less likely, so now if your lender charges a 2% fee, that’s 200 dollars and your loan now only finances $9800 of your costs.

Two weeks later, even more bad news came: they suspended their federal student loan consolidation program, and cut 23 jobs.

SAF keeps promising that they will be able to help Montana students in the 2008-2009 academic

year. But what about the year after that? And the one after that? In the press release, SAF’s President and CEO Jim Stipcich said: “We’re continuing to monitor the situation on the national level and hope that FFELP program participants, (Congress, lenders, and public leaders) are able to identify an effective and efficient solution that assures all Americans have access to federal student loans this fall.”

There’s been some calls from the Montana Board of Regents and legislators like Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester to look into the problems that SAF is facing. Today, the state legislative auditor declined to audit the group.

But the bottom line here is: the economy’s in tough shape folks, and Montana students are going to suffer. I wish I could think of a witty wisecrack to describe how I feel about this, but I imagine college students are feeling scared, angry and generally concerned about how to pay for school. 

I’ll never forget my own personal representative from SAF: Shea. That woman made me feel hopeful when I felt like I’d never be able to crawl out from underneath my student loans. She assured me I wouldn’t be putting all of my disposable income into loan repayment until I’m 40, and she assured me I’d be able to buy a house someday. She helped me lock in a good rate before the interest rates went up each July, and my senior year, she sat down with me and developed a plan for my financial future. She remembered me from year to year, despite the thousands of students she helped, and I’ll forever be grateful to Shea. In the tough time this country is facing, I hope the Student Assistance Foundation won’t go away, and future generations of Montana Students will have someone on their side like Shea was on mine.