Sallie Mae

When researching student loans and financial aid, you'll continually run across references to Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae is a Fortune 500 corporation that makes money by providing student loans. It didn't start out as a business-it was created in 1972 by Congress as a quasi governmental organization, the Student Loan Marketing Association. Investors began to refer to it by shorthand as Sallie Mae. Eventually, Sallie Mae was privatized, and is now America's biggest provider of student loans. With over 10,000 employees, Sallie Mae handles over 100 billion dollars worth of student loans for over 8 million borrowers.