Who's Profiting From $1.2 Trillion of Federal Student Loans?
Companies that have benefited from the loan program range from debt servicer Affiliated Computer Services Inc., now part of Xerox Corp., to Education Management Corp., which operates for-profit colleges and whose largest shareholder is Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Education Management settled with the government in November for almost $100 million over alleged illegal student-recruitment practices without admitting wrongdoing.
FMS Investment Corp., a unit of Ceannate Corp. that tried to collect from Sofia, was paid $227 million by the Education Department from October 2011 through September of this year, the most of any debt-collection company under contract in that period, according to the agency. Florida Coastal is part of the InfiLaw System, a consortium of three schools. A principal investor in InfiLaw is Sterling Partners, a private-equity firm that also owns a stake in Laureate Education Inc.,...