They are all symptoms of an insider culture, where who you know and when you know them are far more critical than where you've been and what you've done. That the smile and handshake can cast a long shadow over any resume has long been known, but the depth of these relationships, and the corruption they inspire have only now revealed their incredibly tortured faces.

Let's begin with what is most relevant to us students, the widening Student Loan Scandal. Remember when your school gave you information about how much school could cost you, and then showed you a list of student loan companies? Well, the companies listed are no accident, they've paid a lot to be on that list. In fact, they've paid the people handing you the list. Many financial aid officers were given a 2% cut of the interest accrued off your college career. Some were even flown out to exotic vacation destinations on your dime while you were writing a PoliSci term paper. As of right now, the investigation is headed by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and so far 6 Universities have fessed up (partly): Syracuse University and the University of Pennsylvania, just to name a couple. And the companies involved are some of the top sellers in the industry, Sallie Mai and Citibank currently top the list. Student loans are a big, $85 billion dollar industry, and it looks like the comfortable relationship between financial aid officers and student loan lenders have resulted in an artificial hike in fees at the same time as the price of college tuition has skyrocketed - not to mention the Republican's own raid of our Student Aid last year. That's very, very, very bad news for us.

But it isn't just the students suffering from this increasingly bleak "who you know" culture. The unquestioned king of insiders remains Karl Rove, who has recently been found to have been using governmental agencies to form a significant branch of Republican re-election efforts. Let me say this again with more effect: YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE BEING USED TO RE-ELECT REPUBLICANS!!! Fortunately, because we have a Democratic Legislative Branch now (best Christmas gift ever), we now receive federal probes into these activities. And what's come out hasn't been pretty. Seems that at the end of January the General Services Administration housed a talk on "how we use GSA to help our candidates in the next election." It is increasingly evident that this has been going on for awhile. Remember the seemingly impossible Republican ascent in 2004? Well, this might help explain how it's possibility was driven by some very cynical internal deals in a manipulated government.

It reminds me of Enron, back when the companies former employees were given a brutal reminder of this insider trading. As College Democrats, we must address the Student Loan Scandal on our campuses, but we also have to keep in mind that we all have a bigger battle to fight for our lives and for our country. We must make Democracy fully accessible to everyone, and we must make companies, like those involved in the Student Loan Scandal, fully transparent to those investing in their products. We all deserve better.