> Private companies do not do the lending, the DOE does. Stafford loans, both subsidized and unsubsidized, are issued directly by the DOE to the university. The

> Private companies do not do the lending, the DOE does. Stafford loans, both subsidized and unsubsidized, are issued directly by the DOE to the university. There is no middleman. What private companies are you talking about? Thanks for the info. I'd have to go back through my old papers and find who I was paying, but IIRC the domains were all ".coms" and not ".edu". Basically what I'm saying is there is a huge private business in servicing these loans, even if it's the U.S. Taxpayer that is on the hook for the principal.