[hollerith]

Let me clarify that. The Wikipedia article says that MyRichUncle become a traditional maker of student loans "following an unsuccessful attempt to secure greater financing". In other words, although they had plenty of young people who wanted to sell a fraction of their future earnings in exchange for money now, they could not match those young people up with investors.

They began trying to match young people up with investors for a fraction of future earnings in 1999 and began making traditional student loans in 2005, which is where the "6 years" comes in, but during those 6 years they might have had to turn away most of the young people who wanted money now.