The following are some of the provisions of the House-passed Student Loan Sunshine Act:

• Lenders participating on preferred-lender lists would be required to annually certify their compliance with the new provisions.
• Lenders would be prohibited from offering private education loans to a student attending a school for which the lender is a preferred lender until the school has advised the student of remaining eligibility for federal student loans.
• School names, logos, mascots and other identifiers may not be used in the marketing of private education loans by preferred lenders, if the items imply that the school endorses the private-loan product.
• The secretary of education is required to develop a model format for reporting education-loan-interest rates, borrower benefits and other terms. The legislation requires lenders to use an updated version of that format to submit annual reports to the secretary for each type of education loan provided to student- and parent-borrowers. Schools also would be required to submit annual reports to the department of education explaining why the terms and conditions of each loan are beneficial to its students and parents and also provide this information to the public.
• Postsecondary institutions that participate in the federal student-loan program or in private student-loan programs would be required to develop and publish a code of conduct prohibiting conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflict between any school official regarding student loans and financial aid.
• Education lenders, guarantors and servicers would be prohibited from providing any gift of more than negligible monetary value to any employee of a postsecondary institution. The definition of gift includes any services, transportation, lodging or meals, including reimbursement for these items. The only exceptions are brochures and other informational materials related to student loans and financial literacy; food and refreshments delivered as part of a training session; favorable terms, conditions and borrower benefits on loans provided to student-employees of the institution if the benefits are consistent with those provided other students; and exit-counseling services, as long as the school controls the counseling, and the counseling does not promote specific lender products or services. The legislation also prohibits school employees with financial-aid responsibilities from accepting from any lender any fee, payment or compensation for consulting services or for serving in an advisory capacity to the lender.
• Revenue-sharing arrangements and opportunity pools between education lenders and schools, as well as lender staffing of the financial-aid office and assistance with school call-center staffing would be prohibited.
• Financial-aid staff would be barred from participating in lender advisory councils, although lenders would be permitted to continue to seek advice from school officials about improved products and services for borrowers, as long as the school officials receive no gifts or compensation for their participation.
• Schools that maintain preferred-lender lists would be required to include at least three unaffiliated lenders on the list and disclose the reasons for the selection of the lenders and the fact the students do not have to borrow from a preferred lender. Schools would be required to establish a process for selecting preferred lenders based on interest rates and other loan terms, quality of servicing, and borrower benefits.
• Lenders of private loans would be required to disclose in their applications and marketing materials information about federal student loans, and obtain borrower acknowledgement of receipt of the information.
• The secretary of education would be required to enhance information about federal financial-aid programs on the department’s Federal Student Financial Aid Web site.