Dana Kelly, director of financial planning at High Point University in North Carolina, said she accepted the company’s invitation to sit on its advisory board because she was providing advice about how students might react to various loans. The company was already on the university’s “frequently used lenders” list, she said, and she received payment only for transportation and lodging at meetings.

But in at least one case, Mr. Balestri encouraged a university loan official to buy stock in the company, a practice that several university loan officials say they had never heard of.

Lawrence Burt, director of the financial aid office at the University of Texas at Austin, said that Mr. Balestri encouraged him to buy shares in Education Lending Group and that he bought 1,500 shares for $1,000 in late 2001.

Mr. Balestri, Mr. Burt said, told him “this is kind of a risky venture. We think it will end up turning a profit but we don’t really know for sure.” Mr. Burt said his purchase was not a conflict of interest because the company at the time was focused more on loan consolidation and only later began expanding its business of originating loans. Mr. Burt said he sold in 2003 when the company was raising more money through the sale of additional shares. The shares of Education Lending Group were worth roughly $10 each. That translates into a profit of about $14,000 for him.

Others who put stock up for sale at that time, according to S.E.C. filings, included the financial aid director for Columbia’s undergraduate college and its engineering school, David Charlow; Catherine Thomas, director of financial aid at the University of Southern California, and Matteo Fontana, who is general manager in a unit of the Office of Federal Student Aid at the Department of Education, and, according to a person who knows him, a longtime friend of Mr. Balestri’s. Mr. Fontana planned to sell about $100,000 in stock up for sale in 2003. In the last few days, these officials have been put on paid leave pending investigations.

Last week, Ms. Frishberg of Johns Hopkins said she had been encouraged to acquire stock in 2002, at a dinner she and other members of the company’s advisory board attended. She turned it down, she said.

“I told them it was not allowed in my position,” Ms. Frishberg said.

Johns Hopkins put her on leave after learning that she had received payments from the company. Mr. Cuomo’s office wrote that she received $43,000 for consulting and $22,000 in tuition reimbursement for a doctoral program she was enrolled in. Student Loan Xpress is a preferred lender at Johns Hopkins for some loan programs.