The Johns Hopkins University will give more than $1 million to educate college students about financial aid, part of a settlement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose national investigation of the student loan industry revealed a Hopkins official was accepting kickbacks from a lender.

“The university has reached this agreement so that we can focus on what is truly important: ensuring that our financial aid program operates in the best interest of students,” William Brody, Hopkins’ president, said in a statement. “ Our commitment today to our students and their families is to redouble our efforts to ensure that it does just that.”

The university will give $562,500 each to Cuomo’s fund for educating students and families about financial aid and a similar effort headed by Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler. Because Hopkins is not in Cuomo’s jurisdiction, the university could have gone to court to dispute his authority in the case, but decided against it, said Dennis O’Shea, a university spokesman.

“Fighting litigation would be a waste of time and money ... [this was] an appropriate way to resolve the situation given the circumstances,” O’Shea said.

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The university also announced Thursday that it will officially adapt Cuomo’s recommended code of conduct for financial aid officers. The code of conduct forbids financial aid officers from accepting money for lenders and says they must explicitly disclose how they select their preferred lender lists.

Cuomo’s investigation, which began in April, revealed that Ellen Frishberg, the director of one of Hopkins’ seven financial aid offices, had accepted about $65,000 in tuition or consulting fees from Student Loan Xpress Inc., a recommended lender. Frishberg was placed on administrative leave April 9 and resigned May 18.

Gansler met with representatives from Maryland’s colleges earlier this week, asking them to establish a code of conduct similar to Cuomo’s. The colleges have two weeks to review his proposed policy.

mmcilroy@baltimoreexaminer.com