Colleges would be required to give students information to help them shop around among loan providers under proposed changes in student-loan programs announced by the U.S. Department of Education. The proposed regulations represent the department's most significant response to date to the continuing controversy over conflicts of interest in the student-loan industry. They were issued in a 225-page document posted on the department's Web site on June 1, six weeks after negotiations over the changes ended in an impasse and a month after the attorney general of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, accused the department of exercising lax oversight of the programs. The proposals would establish strict new rules for the use of preferred-lender lists and clarify what constitutes a "prohibited inducement" under federal law. At the heart of the college-lender scandal have been accusations that some colleges and college officials have taken kickbacks and gifts from lenders in return for steering borrowers to them. Some two dozen colleges and half a dozen lenders have signed agreements pledging to observe a code of conduct drawn up by Mr. Cuomo, who has led an investigation into the controversy. Top student-aid officials at four universities, and in the Education Department itself, have resigned, been fired, or been suspended as a result of the scandal. The department began working on the rule changes last winter, before the scandal erupted, when it convened a panel of negotiators from colleges, student groups, and loan companies to discuss its proposed revisions. Under the proposed rules, colleges would be required to include on their preferred-lender lists at least three lenders who are not affiliated with each other. Colleges would also be required to provide borrowers with comparative information on interest rates and benefits offered by the preferred lenders. If a college included a lender that offered interest-rate or fee reductions, it would have to ensure that the lender provided those benefits to all students at the college, not just to a subset, such as students deemed better credit risks. In addition, the regulations would require colleges to disclose to borrowers the "method and criteria" they had used to pick the lenders and to notify borrowers that they may choose a lender that is not on the list. Colleges could not recommend lenders that had offered payments or other inducements in exchange for placement on the list. Lenders seemed largely satisfied with the regulations, seeing them perhaps as a way to insulate themselves from the smoldering scandal. Mr. Cuomo was not satisfied, saying in a written statement that "a gaping hole" in the regulations would still allow colleges to pick preferred lenders for reasons other than the best interests of the student borrowers.