The investigation of New York State's attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, into the questionable practices of lenders in federal student-loan programs has helped raise public awareness of one of the greatest scams in our government: The Federal Family Education Loan program, otherwise known as the guaranteed-student-loan program, is unnecessarily expensive, structurally broken, and rife with corruption. It is increasingly clear that our convoluted federal student-loan delivery system, through which private lenders provide government-backed loans to students, cannot be fixed by incremental reform. By any objective analytical review, the guaranteed-loan program is a failure--and a costly one at that. Congress has been far too lenient with taxpayers' investment in student loans for too long. Taxpayers cannot settle for shortsighted "fixes" to the current program, nor should they accept anything less than a robust debate resulting in comprehensive reform. Banks are commercial enterprises that should be free to pursue profitable returns, but not at the expense of students and taxpayers, and not as part of the federal student-loan program. Ultimately, it is necessary to kill this beast to save the public trust in federal student-loan programs.