On the eve of a congressional hearing on student loan practices, the House passed a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would bar lenders from giving gifts to colleges or school officials to win business, and would require schools to disclose any financial ties to lenders.

The passage of the bill, pushed by House education committee chair George Miller, D-Calif., comes a day before Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is to testify at the hearing. Spellings is expected to be grilled about how her agency handled conflicts of interest and what it's doing to combat questionable loan practices.

Miller and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., have criticized the department's oversight of student lenders and its own department officials. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said at a House hearing last month that conflicts of interest between lenders and universities escalated because the department had been "asleep at the switch" in overseeing the federal loan program.

The House bill's passage is "promising" and comes at a pivotal time, says Michael Dannenberg of the New America Foundation, a policy institute. "Congress wants to show action in response to the disturbing press reports we've seen about conflicts." Prospects for a similar bill in the Senate are not clear...

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