UM-System signs conduct agreement

JEFFERSON CITY - University of Missouri employees who assist students getting loans have been officially barred from working for a lending company or accepting money or gifts from loan agencies under an executive order signed Monday by the University of Missouri System's interim president.

The order parallels the voluntary code of conduct that the state attorney general has been urging colleges and universities to agree to since March.

A UM-System news release states that Interim President Gordon Lamb issued an executive order which will be added to the University's Collected Rules and Regulations, but makes no direct mention of Attorney General Jay Nixon's code of conduct agreement.

The executive order outlines eight tenants of the proper student loan relationship; four of the student loan provisions comprise the Attorney General's Code of Conduct. Among the provisions, the code prohibits kickbacks to schools, requires information disclosures about preferred lenders and limits school employees participation on lender advisory boards.

"This executive order will boost confidence that the University uses the best practices, while enhancing clarity and consistency in student lending practices across our four campuses," Lamb is quoted as saying in the release.

Nixon's office spokesman Scott Holste said the Attorney General's office has been working with the UM-System for a few months and is happy that Lamb made the executive order.

"It mirrors the agreements made with other schools," Holste said.

Holste said the addition of the UM-System means that most of the state's larger higher education institutions have agreed to some form of the code of conduct.

Twenty-six Missouri Colleges and Universities have reached similar agreement's with the Attorney General's Office.

The Attorney General drafted the code of conduct agreement after New York's state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, began a national investigation into the relationship between student loan lenders and universities nationwide.

The executive order provisions include:

Prohibiting UM officials, employees or agents from accepting anything of more than "nominal value" from or on behalf of a lending institution.
Barring the University from accepting anything of value from a lending institution to give that institution any advantage related to student lending.
Limiting participation by UM employees on advisory boards for student lending institutions.
Imposing and clarifying disclosure requirements and rules for being considered a "preferred lender" for students by any of the UM campuses.
Prohibiting student lending institutions from providing staffing at UM financial aid offices.
Barring so-called "opportunity loans" or any similar arrangement or practice, in which a lender provides loans that it would not otherwise make available, based on receiving favorable amounts of business from a school's students.