While people were struggling trying to figure out how to pay off their student loan debt, Sallie Mae execs were out here flying out employees for a luxury vacation in Hawaii to celebrate $5 billion in “sales.”
It was revealed recently that Sallie Mae brought more than 100 of its employees to Hawaii back in August to celebrate a record year–$5 billion in student loans to 374.000 borrowers, according to NBC News. “We said, ‘Hey, look, Maui is a pretty nice spot.’ And so if you wanted to stay a few days or want to bring family, that’s up to you,” Ray Quinlan, CEO of Sallie Mae, told NBC News on the grounds of the Fairmont Hotel.
Borrowers are rightfully upset as the nation’s total student loan debt grows to $1.6 trillion. People took to social media to voice their anger about how out of touch Sallie Mae seems to be with the debt crisis.
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“Sallie Mae is celebrating $5 BILLION dollars in sales, not million, BILLION. Those aren’t sales, those are people trying to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” to better their lives and being exploited by the terms of students loans,” said Twitter user Bani Hanma.
It doesn’t seem that Sallie Mae officials thought about the potential backlash.
“This is a sales get-together for all of our salespeople,” Quinlan said, adding the publicly traded company has been taking retreats like the Maui one since it was founded in the 1970s.
Officials with the Center for Responsible Lending private student loans give loans to people who will likely be unable to pay them back, adding the issue disproportionately affects Black, Latino, Native American and female students.
Black undergraduate students with debt are unable to afford their loans at five times the rate of white bachelor’s degree graduates, a 2019 study in part done by the CRL found.
What are your thoughts on Sallie Mae’s big Hawaii vacation? Let us know.
