According to various newswires, the corporation formerly known as Sallie Mae has completed its privatization, meaning that it is no longer a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), and is now wholly a private-sector company. What does this mean for students? Well, this is strictly conjecture on my part, but as a wholly-private company, my guess is that Sallie Mae will need to increasingly focus on serving its most important customers… … its shareholders. Don’t believe it? Look at the list of top shareholders: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=SLM Fidelity, Vanguard, State Street, Citigroup… these are not corporations which view profits casually or carelessly. They are very much profit-focused, and expect results, which means that Sallie Mae will need to deliver earnings, profits, revenues, and growth commensurate with any private, publicly-traded corporation. If profits start to sag, Sallie Mae will need to do like any other corporation and find a way to boost profits. You can guess who will foot that bill. It won’t be the shareholders. Sallie Mae is a for-profit corporation. Unlike some other student loan agencies, like TERI, Sallie Mae is not bound by any rules other than SEC rules and those governing private corporations. If they suddenly decide their Signature Private Student Loan interest rate needs to be 42%, then they can do that, and loan holders will either have to pay up or get out. My opinion only. You can research SLM for yourself here: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SLM