Of the schools that provided federal student loans in each year since 1994-95, approximately 1,200—or 29 percent—provided loans through the Direct Loan Program, and most of those schools continued to participate in the Direct Loan Program in school year 2001-02. Since 1998-99, the Direct Loan Program’s share of total new loan volume has steadily decreased from its peak of 34 percent to 28 percent in 2001-02. During this same time period, the number of schools that began to participate in the program was smaller than the number of schools that stopped participating
