What's the recipe for waste, fraud and abuse in the student loan industry?  Billions of dollars at stake, an administration in bed with business, and a Republican-led Congress (until this year) that often ignored its oversight responsilbiities. 

No surprise then that the student loan world is being rocked by yet another scandal, first uncovered by Stephen Burd, who wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education before switching to the New America Foundation.  The Washington Post reported this weekend that Matteo Fontana "held more than $100,000 of stock in a student loan company at the same time he helped oversee the lending industry."

The body count, near as I can tell, is 10 so far, with suspensions or leave for Fontana, three employees at the lender, and loan officials at six colleges.

This scandal follows on the heels of Nelnet's loan repackaging scheme ($278 million lost while administration officials looked the other way) and charges of questionable stock sales by a Sallie Mae official just before the release of a Bush administration budget proposal that led to a drop in stock prices.

So what's next? Maybe someone will look into the U.S. Department of Education's relationship with Affiliated Computer Services, a company that received a huge contract shortly after two supporters of President Bush left the administration to work for ACS.

UPDATE:  Anya Kamenetz of Huffington Post writes that Matteo Fontana is "one of the gaggle of Sallie Mae execs who followed their boss Theresa Shaw through the revolving door into much lower-paid Department of Ed gigs after Bush's election."  (Kamenetz links to Theresa Shaw's official bio, which somehow fails to mention her appearance in one of the Ketchum-produced fake TV news stories.)