Why make government the prime source for student loans?

By Senator Lamar Alexander

The Washington Post

After reading the article, here are my questions:

1) Does the government know that they are going to "borrow" the money at 2.8% from the treasury and charge students 6.8% and take the profits for other programs?
2) How much are the administration costs going to be for the program? After all, the infrastructure is already in place mostly run by private lenders.
3) If government loans are so much better, why did 15 million students select to have their loans by private companies and only 4 million through the government in 2008?
4) Has the government figured out how many students will choose to go into government for 10 years to eliminate the loan at a cost to the rest of us?
How many students will not be able to pay off their loans after 20 years at 10% of their earnings and have their loans payed off by the government at a cost to the rest of us?
5) How many non profit companies will go out of business and how many jobs will be lost by the non profit companies?
6) Where is "choice" in America any more?

Update March 30, 2010:

Obama Signs ‘Meaningful’ Student Loan Reform