Sallie Mae (the Student Loan Marketing Association) was privatized in 1996, making it the first government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) to be spun off by the federal government with a sunset on its government charter. What has been the result and what can we learn from it? In a new study for AEI, Thomas H. Stanton has reviewed the terms of the privatization and the ensuing history of the student loan industry. Participants at this conference will consider Stanton’s paper and its analysis of how the government should and should not sever its ties with a GSE, as well as the larger implications for the student loan sector.
Thomas H. Stanton is coauthor, with Peter J. Wallison and Bert Ely, of Privatizing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks: Why and How (AEI Press, 2004). Alex J. Pollock, a resident fellow at AEI and former president and chief executive officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago; Lawrence A. Hough, chairman of Sallie Mae when it developed and prosecuted its privatization plan; Sarah Ducich, vice president for public policy at Sallie Mae; and Frederick M. Hess, resident scholar at AEI and editor of Footing the Tuition Bill: The New Student Loan Sector (AEI Press, 2007), will discuss Stanton’s presentation.
