Following Thursday's outcry from financial aid administrators on financial aid listervs, The Princeton Review's Vice President of Publishing, Robert Franek notified the financial aid community that the company would create an alternate design to make it clear that My Rich Uncle is the Review's partner lender and not listed schools' partner lender. Franek noted that the change may take a few days to implement. Some aid administrators were skeptical that the planned change would not be sufficient and said they would not be satisfied until the link to My Rich Uncle was completely removed from their institution's Web page.
Earlier on Friday, the Review made a temporary change to the wording on its Web site to clarify that My Rich Uncle was the review's partner lender not schools' partner lender. The phrase had read "Partner Lender: MyRichUncle" and included a link to the lender’s site. It was changed to "The Princeton Review's Partner Lender: MyRichUncle." While the change was an improvement and possibly eased the Review's legal liability, financial aid administrators were not satisfied. Many administrators wanted MyRichUncle removed entirely from their institutions' Web page on the Review site.
The Higher Education Act gives students the legal right to choose any lender, including lenders that are not on the preferred lender list. However, aid administrators argued that the current change to the site was still misleading because the listings still implied that the institution had approved the lender as their partner. Some argued that having only one lender listed under the Scholarships and Financial Aid section of an institution's Web page was questionable advertising.
The entire text of Franek's notice is included below.
The Princeton Review's Notice to Aid Administrators
Greetings,
First off, we thank the many higher education professionals who took the time to talk with us regarding The Princeton Review's listing of MyRichUncle on our site's school profile pages. As you likely know, schools provide the statistical data used on the profiles. On the same pages, TPR also lists qualitative student opinion data, ranking lists and links to partner information. MyRichUncle is one such partner.
We support MyRichUncle's innovative student loan products and we praise their goal to be a student advocate - as is our goal at The Princeton Review. In an effort to promote MyRichUncle properly on our Web site, we listed them in the existing Scholarships & Financial Aid section of our school profile page. For many years now, that section of our site has listed other TPR loan partners. No existing text changed on the site, save for the listing of MyRichUncle by name.
That said, it is clear from the responses we've received directly, as well as through several listserves, that there is inherent confusion around the language used on that web page. Please know that it was not our intention to imply that MyRichUncle's relationship was between MRU and specific schools. Based on your feedback, we have made a short-term change to clarify that MyRichUncle is "Princeton Review's Partner Lender" and not that of specific schools. We are now creating an alternate design treatment to further clarify this on our School Profile pages. This change may take a few days to implement.
Again, thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention and for your continued confidence in The Princeton Review.
Best regards,
Robert Franek
VP - Publishing
The Princeton Review
Additional Media Coverage
MyRichUncle’s Under-the-Radar Purchase (Inside Higher Ed)
Posted 03/12/07 to www.NASFAA.org. Redistribution to non-NASFAA institutions is prohibited. Please submit Web Site questions or comments to Web@NASFAA.org.
