http://www.statenews.com More than 300 MSU students soon will be looking for a new place to borrow money after the state suspended the Michigan Alternative Student Loan, or MI-LOAN, program indefinitely Friday because of insufficient funds. en-us Foundry4 Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:00:05 -0400 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:30:50 -0500 webmaster@statenews.com http://www.statenews.com/index.php/comment/10488/view Our state legislature really needs to get it together. Education has to be our passport to the future, because our blue collar economy is crumbling. Michigan is not doing a very good job of funding education, and all of our future prospects are leaving the state to find jobs. I feel like the state of michigan doesn’t take college level education seriously!!! Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:11:52 -0500 http://www.statenews.com/index.php/comment/10488/view http://www.statenews.com/index.php/comment/10503/view Some details: The Michigan Higher Education Student Loan Authority has suspended MI-LOAN after collapse of its auction-rate securities. These securities were used to obtain a lower interest rate for long term loans. Unfortunately, the securities contained a penalty clause that if the auction fails, the interest rate jumps. The auctions were not supposed to fail, but because of contagion in financial markets caused by failures in the sub-prime mortgage market, the auction-rate securities market has collapsed. According to Paul Krugman of the New York Times, The Port Authority of New York “saw the interest rate it pays leap from 4.3 percent to 20 percent.” Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:30:50 -0500 http://www.statenews.com/index.php/comment/10503/view