By Tamar Lewin
When President Obama last month announced proposals to make college more affordable, many critics focused on his plan to rate colleges based on measures like tuition, graduation rates, and the debt and earnings of graduates, and eventually to link financial aid to those ratings.
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Arne Duncan, the education secretary, said more defaults could be prevented if people knew about their repayment options.
Largely overlooked was a more immediate change that could make a dent in the rising number of student-loan borrowers going into default. Starting next month, the Department of Education will contact borrowers who are struggling to repay their federal loans to make sure they know all the options available to them.
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