The latest installment of the debate unfolded Tuesday during a forum here at the New America Foundation, a think tank whose higher education analysts are strongly allied with and generally supportive of the new administration's policies, including its plans to restructure the loan programs.

But if the forum was a bit one-sided, New America can't really be faulted; MaryEllen McGuire, who directs the foundation's Education Policy Program and moderated the event, noted that four loan industry officials had turned down the chance to appear, and the person who took her up on the unenviable request, the lobbyist Scott Fleming, joked that he had "always said I'd walk on broken glass for [McGuire], and this may be as close as I get."