As president of the University of Miami, Donna E. Shalala answers to dozens of trustees, many of whom are captains of industry. But two of those board members also answer to her. Ms. Shalala's uncommon role reversal is a product of her lucrative service on the boards of two different companies headed by members of Miami's Board of Trustees. In…

Economists may be biased in ways that are not apparent to many. A widely espoused theory in economics is that regulators' decisions often become biased in favor of the industries they regulate; to use economic jargon, they become "captured." Economic incentives encourage even the best-intentioned regulators to cater to the interests of the…

Wall Street bankers currently serve as the national poster children for greed, but they face a strong challenge from some university researchers who have apparently been taking millions of dollars in secret from the medical industry. Recent revelations about those undisclosed payments have universities and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)…

Kevin C. Elliott, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, asserts in the January issue of the journal "Accountability in Research" that the three pillars of academe's attempts to police conflict of interest--disclosure, management, and elimination of conflicts--are beset by serious flaws. Charges of…

Hundreds of financial conflicts of interest among university researchers have not been investigated by the National Institutes of Health, an agency that should police them, according to a new audit report. The report, by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services--NIH's parent agency--describes a dysfunctional system that…

Last April, as part of a $2-million settlement with New York's attorney general, the nation's largest student-loan company, Sallie Mae, agreed to stop providing staff members for colleges' financial-aid offices and call centers at no cost to the institutions. But one year later, Sallie Mae still plays host to the entire online presence for the…

This paper discusses a report released by the Education Department's Office of Inspector General regarding problems in the administration of the government's Reading First Program. Reading First is a $900-million-a-year program that was designed to improve reading instruction in low-income schools in kindergarten through third grade. According to…

Twenty years ago, a U.S. Senate aide walked into a bank in Maine and saw a sign that read "Take out a student loan today, get a toaster." The aide, concerned that students would be tempted to take out loans they did not need, drafted legislation barring lenders from offering "inducements" to borrow. That language was added to the Higher Education…

Almost half of large nonprofit groups make insider deals with board members, and one-third of those deals occur without the prior approval of other board members, according to a new study by the Urban Institute. The study, which is described in a report released on Monday, "Nonprofit Governance in the United States: Findings on Performance…

Despite action by Congress and the Bush administration to shore up the student-loan industry, some state-authorized organizations say they may not return to the loan business this year, and others are cutting some of the borrower benefits and services they provide. Nine state loan agencies stopped issuing either new federally backed or new private…

An expanding investigation into conflicts of interest in the student-loan industry continued to sweep up more lenders and college financial-aid administrators last week. The nation's largest student-loan provider, Sallie Mae, accepted a $2-million settlement with New York State's attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, and three more college officials…

In this article, the author draws on his experience as the director of the Fitchburg State College Foundation in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, to make a distinction between being a good neighbor to local non-profit organizations by sharing strategies and information, and creating conflicts of interest when both the college and its neighbor…

Matteo Fontana, the student-aid official in the U.S. Department of Education who was suspended last month in an ethics case, issued a controversial high-stakes legal ruling in 2004 that benefited his former employer, Sallie Mae, on the day before the nation's top student lender completed its transition from a government-founded lender into a…

The ever-expanding investigation into conflicts of interest between colleges and lenders continued to claim victims last week as two more universities settled with New York State's attorney general, and another fired its financial-aid director. Drexel University, the only institution that had said it would fight allegations over its student-loan…

Colleges would be required to give students information to help them shop around among loan providers under proposed changes in student-loan programs announced by the U.S. Department of Education. The proposed regulations represent the department's most significant response to date to the continuing controversy over conflicts of interest in the…