Twenty-five years ago, far-sighted Missouri officials recognized that a college education gave people more control over their destinies, more options to improve their own lives, even the tools to break themselves and their families out of the cycle of poverty. They also recognized that the high cost of college could keep a lot of ordinary folks from getting such an education.

So Democrats and Republicans in state government created a non-profit, public-private corporation and gave it the mission of supplying college loans at favorable terms to Missourians who meet college admission standards but didn't have enough money to attend.

The founding legislation named this body the Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri — MOHELA. A quarter of a century later, MOHELA estimates it has helped more than 500,000 students through its various loan programs.

A year ago, Gov. Matt Blunt tried to destroy it.

On Jan. 26, 2006, Blunt announced that he planned, in effect, to seize and liquidate MOHELA's assets and shut the place down. He wanted to use the money to pay for construction projects on various college campuses and pump funds into an obscure non-profit technology development company he controls through board appointments. Although state law created MOHELA and established the broad outlines of its operations, Blunt claimed he didn't need to change state law to plunder and dismantle it. He backed off when a somewhat less extreme proposal emerged, one that would have bled off MOHELA assets but left it in existence. But that plan went down in the flames of political bickering last spring...

— In exchange for the diversion of MOHELA assets to fund college construction projects, Missouri universities are expected to steer more of their student loan business to MOHELA. In a commentary published on this page in September, education specialist Michael Dannenberg, who as a congressional staffer helped revise the federal Higher Education Act, characterized that arrangement as "an illegal bribe" that violates Section 435 of the statute...

For the complete article, please visit the St. Louis Post Dispatch website.