Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest lender to college students, agreed yesterday to pay $2 million to settle an investigation by the New York attorney general’s office and said it would close down student call centers it has run for college financial aid offices.

The loan company, which manages student loans for nearly 10 million borrowers at more than 5,600 colleges, also agreed to adopt a code of conduct prepared by the office of the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, who announced the settlement at a news conference in Manhattan yesterday. The code prohibits loan companies from giving gifts or trips to university financial aid administrators. It also bans arrangements in which universities are paid for loan volume...

“The ultimate success of these student loan investigations will be measured by the degree to which they result in cheaper college loans,” said Michael Dannenberg, director of the education policy program at the New America Foundation, a Washington public policy institute...

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