If you want an indication of just how radical the Democrats in Congress have become, consider the vote on H.R. 3221. The legislation, which I wrote about yesterday, shuts down all private lenders for higher education student loans, requires that colleges and universities adhere to a new federal bureaucracy, creates a new Green Schools Czar, and hints that any school not complying will see its students denied federal student loans.

Last year, Congress passed the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (ECASLA). The bill passed in the House 388-21, including 221-0 among Democrats. The Senate passed it by unanimous consent. President Bush signed it. The legislation was a bi-partisan piece of legislation that allowed private sector involvement in student loans without a new federal bureaucracy.

This year, the Republican substitute to HR 3221 would extend ECASLA programs through 2014 and create a commission to develop a new private sector model for student lending. The amendment failed 165-265. 257 Democrats unanimously voted no.

Final passage of HR 3221 was 253-171. 4 Democrats voted no, 6 Republicans vote aye.

The Democrats have now rejected the same legislation they unanimously supported last year in favor of a new, expansive federal bureaucracy.

Moderate Democrats in the Senate need to consider this. The legislation is opposed by many major colleges and universities. Senators Johnson, Nelson, Casey, and Gillibrand are on notice. And hopefully Charlie Crist’s errand boy, George LeMieux, is paying attention.

While we are all focusing on H.R. 3200, the House Democrats’ health care plan, we should at least glance at H.R. 3221, the House Democrats’ plan to kill off higher education access. (PDF)

The legislation is opposed by many major universities including Notre Dame, among others. Basically, the bill would shut down all private providers of student loans, drive up costs for universities, and become a bureaucratic nightmare for institutions of higher learning. The professors may be leftists, but the administrators have to pay attention to the bottom line.

The Director of Student Financial Strategies at University of Notre Dame warns in a letter to Congressman Miller, “Any legislation that eliminates choice and competition and mandates that all institutions adopt an all-government run program for the 2010/11 academic year is filled with immense risk and would create massive confusion.”

Get that? The Democrats want an “all-government run program” to provide people access to money to pay for college. And if they do that, then they can force universities to comply with lots of new rules or deny students the right to use federal student loans to go to particular colleges.

But it gets better. Boy does it ever get better.

§ 343 of the plan creates a Green Schools Czar. No kidding. A Green Schools Czar (and committee naturally) would examine the impact of more environmentally friendly universities and find ways to create even more environmentally friendly universities. Oh . . . I have an idea . . . if students need financial assistance and they are forced to go through the feds, the feds can simply tell universities to become compliant or they won’t let students use their student loans to go there.

What is so funny is that §312 of Obama’s stimulus plan also sent money to schools to become more environmentally friendly. That was the carrot. Well, this new law will become the stick.