Throughout the Great Recession, only one type of household debt grew: student debt. At a time when families are scraping together funds to pay down their credit cards, mortgages and auto-loans, many are drowning in student debt and facing interest rates so high that default is their only option. It’s been nearly a year since student debt surpassed the $1 trillion dollar mark, with students in debt owing nearly $27,000 by the time they graduate. Today, greedy corporate CEOs continue to profit on the backs of everyday Americans who are just trying to pay for an education. 1. Sallie Mae is a private corporation, not a government entity. Originally created as a government-sponsored enterprise, Sallie Mae began to privatize in 1999 – becoming a completely private bank lender in 2004, lead by current CEO Albert Lord. They’re also the corporate dollars behind popular insurance programs and the U Promise college savings program, plus they manage multiple states’ 529 savings plans. 2. Sallie Mae owns $162.5 billion of student debt, or nearly 20% of all student debt in the country. They are the largest private profiteer off of student debt, with more than 25 million customers. Since 2010, they have expanded their private student loan portfolio with a 22% increase in total loans from 2011 to 2012. 3. Twenty percent of students with Sallie Mae loans default on their payments within three years after entering forbearance. For students who never enter forbearance on their Sallie Mae loans, 7.2% of them default. These numbers are much higher than the national average, where the three-year default rate is 13.4%. The effects of these defaults on the economy are devastating: 10% of student loans in default is equal to $100 billion dollars. 4. In the past five years, Albert Lord has received $53 million in total compensation. Sallie Mae’s senior management team (composed of five executives) received more than $20 million in compensation in 2012. 5. The Department of Education paid Sallie Mae $84 million dollars in 2012. Sallie Mae serves as the owner and bank for the federal loans of 3.4 million students through a Department of Education servicing contract – and gets paid well for doing it. Taxpayers are currently financing a federal student loan system where Sallie Mae gets an 11% commission for federal every loan they rehabilitate. 6. In the past 5 years, Sallie Mae has spent $15 million on federal lobbying as one of the most aggressive corporations trying to influence federal legislation. The bills they lobbied on the most? The Fairness for Struggling Students Act, Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act, and Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. 7. With 63 registered lobbyists in just nine states, Sallie Mae exerts incredible influence at the state level as well. Since the Great Recession began, only two states have increased their investment in higher education, resulting in skyrocketing education costs that require students to take out Sallie Mae and other private bank loans. Coincidence? 8. Sallie Mae is one of the newest members of the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) . In November 2012, Sallie Mae gave a presentation at the ALEC called: “Best Practices for Debt Collection and Tax Amnesty”. ALEC has been widely criticized for promoting such controversial legislation as voter ID laws, right to work laws, and pro-gun stand your ground laws. 9. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has received over 1,500 complaints about Sallie Mae since March 2012. Sallie Mae alone totaled nearly half of the 3,485 complaints submitted about student loans. 10. Sallie Mae has faced class action lawsuits nearly every year since being privatized. The suits have accused the corporation of racist and discriminatory predatory lending practices against minorities and low-income borrowers. As Sallie Mae continues to make higher education a financial pipe dream for American students, youth unemployment and underemployment rates are skyrocketing. It’s time to stop Sallie Mae from preying on borrowers in order to pad their own bottom line. To learn more about Jobs with Justice / American Rights at Work’s campaign to end student debt, please visit: http:// www.jwj.org/end-student-debt