Student Loan Database Abused

Education Department officials are considering temporarily shutting down access to a student loan database due to some users accessing students' private data without permission, The Washington Post reports.

Some student loan companies have allowed marketing firms, collection agencies and loan brokerages to mine the database to collect information from the 60 million records in the system, the Post reports. The database, part of the National Student Loan Data System, stores sensitive financial information on students such as family income, Social Security numbers, addresses and other information.