Okay, I understand that there might be something awry here, but it’s gotta be a slow news day when a leading headline at the New York Times is Student Lender Planned to Woo Officials. Here’s the two opening paragraphs:

The founders of Student Loan Xpress had an explicit plan for corralling a bigger share of the lucrative student loan business: “market to the financial aid offices of schools.”
That was how Robert deRose, Michael H. Shaut and Fabrizio Balestri set out, according to a 2002 regulatory filing by the company, a strategy to use university financial aid offices as the gateway to coveted placements on the lists of lenders recommended to students.

Now, to demonstrate why I think this story is an attempt to drum up a scandal that probably isn’t there:

The founders of Ricky’s Recliners had an explicit plan for corralling a bigger share of the lucrative armchair business: “market to the recommendation offices of interior decorating companies.”
That was how Ricky R. Richardson set out, according to a 2002 regulatory filing by the company, a strategy to use interior decorators as the gateway to coveted placements on the lists of furniture vendors recommended to buyers.

The article goes on to describe what has more scandal potential: yesterday’s news that people in the financial aid offices held stock in some of the lending companies. However, even that strikes me as tenuous at best. I can see how there might be a potential conflict of interest, but the key piece of advice that got Warren Buffett where he is, which is repeated by the Motley Fools and almost every other investment advisor I know, is invest in what you know. As a designer, I might invest in Apple because I know about the company. I might also invest in Adobe and Pantone. When a client asks me which computers, software and color registration companies I might suggest, I’m likely to tell them Apple, Adobe and Pantone – not because I’m an investor, but because my high opinion of their products and services (and my familiarity with them as companies) led me to invest in the first place. Shoot, I’d probably suggest that they invest in them too. (Well, maybe not Apple now. But I’m still kicking myself for not buying Apple at $18. Stupid penniless college student days.)
Is it wrong for a financial aid officer to invest in a particular lending company and then push that company over all others because he or she thinks it’ll cause the stock price to spike? Sure. But is it wrong for a financial aid officer to invest in a company whose products and practices they know well and view as exemplary, and, thus, a good investment? Probably not. The trouble is going to be in proving which line of reasoning took place here, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts ain’t nobody going to come out in court and confess to doing the former.