AfterSputnik

Thousands of current and former Emerson College students will receive payments, some as high as $833, from the school in response to charges that the college steered loan applicants to companies that were allegedly giving gifts to the Emerson financial aid office.

More than 4,000 Emerson students, including 1,200 Massachusetts residents, will receive tuition credit or checks ranging from $25 to $833, depending on their loan.

Thirteen former graduate students, who borrowed the maximum of $55,500, will each be receiving the $833 payment.

Emerson will also reimburse another 59 students the $4,500 kickback it accepted from Education Finance Partners Inc., one of the school’s preferred private lenders from 2005 to 2007.

Emerson does not admit any wrongdoing under the agreement, school spokesman Andy Tiedemann said. Daniel Pinch, former director of Emerson’s financial aid office, was the only member of the office to accept gifts, Tiedmann he said.

From 2004 to 2007, the school steered student borrowers to Citizens Bank and JP Morgan Chase & Co., which were not the least expensive lenders at the time, investigators said.

“They were marketed as the preferred loan, when they were not in fact the best loans for the student,’’ said Amie Breton, spokeswoman for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

In turn, Citizens Bank and Chase handed out free vacations, meals, and event tickets to Emerson’s 21-member financial aid office, according to investigators. No criminal action is being pursued against the banks.

Under the partnership, students who filled out online loan applications were forced to deal with the school’s “preferred lenders.’’

“When [applicants] filled out the online Stafford Loan application, they could choose Chase or they could choose Citizens; that’s it,’’ Breton said.

When students submitted paper applications to Emerson for loans from nonpreferred lenders, the school sent back letters discouraging them from using those lenders.

Investigators also found an Emerson financial aid hotline, supposedly staffed by school workers, was manned from 2001 to 2003 by Sallie Mae, a lending company that often purchased Citizens Bank and Chase loans. They also confirmed that Pinch collected $36,000 as a lobbyist for Collegiate Funding Services, another of the school’s preferred lenders from 2001 to 2003. Pinch was fired for his actions in 2007.

Twelve of the 21 Emerson College financial aid staff members from 2004 to 2007 remain on the job.

Emerson will no longer use any preferred lenders.