For the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to go to college, the home of the brave and free has been a land of opportunities, albeit in today's world of spiraling costs, rising interest rates and inflated tuitions, obtaining such dreams are becoming increasingly difficult.

As the parent of a college sophomore and an 8-year-old talking about going to college, funding such dreams is becoming more challenging as time marches on. A report from the College Board released recently shows that the costs, including room and board at public colleges, is $12,127, up 6.6 percent from a year ago, and $29,026, up 5.7 percent from a year ago, for the private colleges.

Since Congress enacted the Higher Education Act in 1965, there were student financial aid programs that were readily available to assist with those costs. The HEA is the principal piece of law that expires every six years, requiring Congress to reauthorize it and, of course, make amendments along the way to adjust to contemporary needs in the higher education marketplace.

Being an optimist, I would like to think that Congress would also look out for young people struggling to get a higher education, as it moves forward for the latest of negotiations between the House and the Senate.

However, this round of reauthorization has me concerned. It appears as though there are powerful forces lobbying Congress that want to eliminate students' ability to consolidate their college loans, which will increase the costs to students at a time when the rate cap on student consolidation loans might escalate from 6.8 percent to 8.25 percent.

The key player here is the Student Loan Marketing Corp., commonly known as Sallie Mae, which is a government-sponsored enterprise created by the federal government, but owned by public investors. As a government-sponsored enterprise, if too many students defaulted on their loans, Uncle Sugar would come to the rescue. Sallie Mae was put together to help students obtain loans to attend college.

Today, Sallie Mae is growing in size, while attempting to raise costs of student loans and eliminate competition. Imagine the human outcry if the country's largest mortgage lenders tried to set up a monopoly that sought such unworthy goals.

Paul Marble, chief executive officer and president of Del Mar-based Academic Loan Group, competes with Sallie Mae, and compares his company of fewer than 100 employees to the proverbial David vs. Goliath story where "the system is set up to favor large companies that have enormous contribution campaigns and contributions to colleges and politicians. … We're simply here to help students. … Can you imagine being stuck for life, for 30 years with a mortgage loan, and not being able to refinance?"

Though in business only four years, Marble said that Academic Loan Group has found ways to help students refinance college loans, which can save them a lot of money. The average borrower with his company holds $70,000 in debt upon completion of college, he said. Marble's staff can save student borrowers approximately $10,000 over a 30-year period of time at improved interest rates.

Of course, if a student who gets a lower rate from a small company such as Academic Loan Group goes back to Sallie Mae with proof of the lower rate, "as soon as we institute competition, they suddenly can match that rate. However, that lower rate isn't a rate of interest they advertise or offer routinely to students."

The Wire magazine in New Hampshire recently reported how an attorney with more than $100,000 in debt learned that she was saddled with an 8.25 percent interest rate on that total because she had consolidated her loans earlier in her college career, and that under current education loan policies, she could only consolidate once. Today's loans carry 4.75 percent interest, but she's locked into the higher rate of interest.

As I understand it, Sallie Mae is six times larger than its next-largest competitor, Citigroup-controlled Student Loan Corp., and of course, it towers above state agencies in the student loan businesses.

A General Accounting Office report noted that people who consolidate their loans are three times less likely to default on their student loans.

As a parent, I don't want Sallie Mae to curtail my right to pick student loans and to prevent me from seeking the best rate for loan consolidation, which could cost me thousands of dollars in decades ahead.

Contact staff writer J. Stryker Meyer at (760) 901-4089.