Alumni associations from the Lincoln, Omaha and Kearney campuses of the University of Nebraska received subpoenas from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Friday as part of his investigation into their loan consolidation agreements with Lincoln student loan company Nelnet.

On Thursday, Cuomo’s office announced it was subpoenaing 90 alumni associations nationwide.  He is trying to find out whether the associations received and failed to disclose to borrowers payments from Nelnet for steering members exclusively to the Lincoln company for student loan consolidations.

Nelnet has said it has about 120 such agreements, in which it markets loan consolidations to eligible alumni members and pays the alumni associations an annual fee, and in some cases, a fixed fee for each loan consolidation.

In a statement Thursday, Nelnet, which also received a subpoena, said it considers those agreements “appropriate and completely in accordance with the law.”

In a code of conduct Nelnet agreed to as part of a settlement with Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning two weeks ago, the company said it would disclose to customers consolidating student loans any financial arrangement with alumni associations and would work with alumni associations to eliminate any fixed fee Nelnet pays for each consolidation loan application.    

Cuomo’s office said the three Nebraska alumni associations were notified by fax Friday morning and would be receiving copies of the subpoenas by registered mail.

The associations have until May 21 to respond.

Lee Denker, president and CEO of the UNO Alumni Association, confirmed that his office had received the faxed subpoena and said he had forwarded it to the association’s attorney.

Denker said he had not had time to review the subpoena and did not feel comfortable talking about it.

Neither Ed Paquette, executive director of the Nebraska Alumni Association, nor Jim Rundstrom, executive director of the UNK Alumni Association, could be reached for comment.

Nelnet also has loan consolidation agreements with the alumni associations at Union College in Lincoln and Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, but Cuomo’s office would not confirm whether those groups received subpoenas.

Eileen Thornburg, Midland’s director of alumni relations, said that to her knowledge, the school had not received a subpoena by late Friday afternoon.

Union College officials could not be reached for comment.

Reach Matt Olberding at 473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com.