"Just two months after the Education Department announced a rescue plan to help student-loan providers - hurting in part from the subsidy cuts enacted by Congress last September - the nonprofit associations and other small lenders are turning out to be those getting the least help," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "The problem, however, is that many smaller and nonprofit lenders are so strapped for cash in the current economic environment that they can't even begin issuing student loans. They can't, therefore, take advantage of an Education Department offer to buy their loans or hold them as collateral. Mr. Warren said the problem is worsened by the fact that under the rules of the government's loan program, a recent drop in interest rates has left lenders facing a "negative subsidy" rate. That means the lenders actually have to start making interest payments to the government for each loan they issue because the 6.8-percent rate that students pay on government-backed loans is greater than prevailing market rates, he said. The lenders, however, don't get any income from student borrowers while they are in college."