With lots of fanfare, Congress recently made student loans slightly less expensive for future students.

But they completely ignored the biggest abuses in the student loan program, abuses that make student loans the most lucrative to collect and the most onerous debts to carry.

The process can be so bad for borrowers that Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren told the Wall Street Journal, “student loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious.”

And no one makes the mobsters greener than Al Lord and his Student Loan Marketing Corporation, the largest student loan provider in the country. It's also known as Sallie Mae - one of the most profitable companies in America.

As the founder of the largest student loan borrower group in America, Student Loan Justice recently began our nationwide tour to reform student loan abuses by visiting the offices of Congressman Price in Marietta.

Congressman Price will be among a handful of congressional leaders who will reform student loans.

The problem with student loans began ten years ago when Congress privatized student loans, largely through a strange arrangement with Sallie Mae.

Sallie Mae assumed all the rewards, but the federal government took all the risks. In addition to legislating draconian collection powers, outlawing bankruptcy protection and imposing huge penalties for delinquent debt, Sallie Mae convinced Congress to outlaw re-financing and other forms of competition for student loans.

With these powers and protection from competition, Sallie Mae's stock price increased nearly 2000 percent in 10 years, with its robust profits coming from collecting penalties on defaulted student loans. Meanwhile, the borrowers suffer.

Student Loan Justice (www.studentloanjustice.org http://www.studentloanjustice.org) has received thousands of stories from citizens whose lives have been shattered by their student loans. These stories are from decent citizens who have been forced to live off the grid, had their livelihoods taken away, been forced to postpone marriage and children. Some have gone so far as fleeing the country and committing suicide.

Such borrowers quickly find themselves unable to function in society, and are faced with a decision to either continue the paralysis and live in fear, or begin making payments on a massively inflated amount - often three or four times more than what they originally borrowed.

That is why Student Loan Justice is working to:

1. Pass legislation which allows borrowers who have been in default for 5 years or more to repay what the government paid for their loan (which includes principle plus interest), and get on with their lives.

2. Give borrowers the right to refinance their debt with lenders willing to give better terms.

3. Ban “school as lender” programs, where universities steer students to certain lenders due to financial incentives. In the business world, that is called kickbacks.

4. Return standard consumer protections to student loans.

5. Make student loan repayments tax deductible

Almost all of these steps could be accomplished with Senator Hillary Clinton's Student Borrower Bill of Rights.

The present situation is not what Congress intended when it created the student loan program, and Congress must undo the program if we are ever to make student loans a stepping stone for middle class opportunity - not a cash cow for Sallie Mae.

As one of the most influential members of the Education Committee, Congressman Price is in a unique and important position to restore sanity and equity to the student loan program. That is what we need him to do.

With lots of fanfare, Congress recently reduced the cost of student loans. But cost was never the big problem: Terms are.

The terms of repayment are so bad that Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren told the Wall Street Journal that "student loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious."

That is why we started Student Loan Justice, which is now America's largest group of student loan borrowers.

And why we recently visited Congressman Price in Marietta.

We are a nationwide, grassroots group of student borrowers who are working for reforms in federal student loans that will create more competition, lower prices, and better terms.

All of which were seriously hurt just last year in Congress. As an of the top education legislators in Washington, Congressman Price, can have a lot to say about this reform.