NEW YORK, April 19 (UPI) -- New York's attorney general said Thursday he would sue Drexel University for allegedly taking kickbacks from a student lender to promote the lender solely.
The lawsuit -- the first against a university in Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's nationwide investigation of student-loan abuses -- accuses Drexel, of Philadelphia, of illegally accepting undisclosed payments of more than $250,000 from Education Finance Partners, a San Francisco lender, from 2005 through this year.
EFP agreed Monday to pay $2.5 million to Cuomo's office to settle allegations it paid kickbacks to more than 60 universities.
Drexel had no immediate comment.
Cuomo's office said four more colleges agreed to settle allegations lenders paid them to list the loan companies as "preferred lenders."
Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I.; Pace University and the New York Institute of Technology in New York; and Molloy College in Rockville Centre, N.Y., agreed to adopt a code of conduct that bans financial ties between lenders and colleges, Cuomo's office said.
Salve Regina agreed to reimburse students $7,800 for student loans received through EFP. Molloy agreed to return $1,600 to EFP.
The colleges had no immediate comment.
