An American University financial adviser accepted a dinner cruise from one of the nation’s largest student lenders, a practice that lawmakers are trying to bar as Congress investigates unethical practices of the student loan industry.

The lender, JP Morgan Chase, paid more than $70,000 for a July Fourth harbor cruise in New York for financial aid officers from 81 schools during a conference in 2005, according to documents provided by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. The financial services company also hired officials from five colleges to perform services even as the officials remained on their schools’ payrolls.