"Sallie Mae, the nation's largest student-loan company, has a contractual arrangement with USA Funds, the nation's largest guarantee agency, that gives the lender extensive financial and operational control over the guarantor that oversees its work," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "The contract, a copy of which has also been posted on the Internet in recent days, shows a relationship that a former high-ranking Education Department official described as so intertwined and detrimental to the interests of students and taxpayers that the department should revisit its controversial 2004 decision to allow the partnership to continue. Both Sallie Mae and USA Funds insist otherwise, saying their joint efforts to work with commercial borrowers have saved taxpayers billions of dollars each year in potential loan-default costs."