Investigate the business practices of Sallie Mae with regard to student lending and mistreatment of borrowers.

SLM, or the Student Loan Marketing Association, later to become Sallie Mae, was initially a government sponsored enterprise designed to attract private capital for educational funding. Sallie Mae became fully privatized in 2004 through an act of Congress. Since, the practices of Sallie Mae have been scrutinized, with particular attention to the fact that a single entity provides loans, processes guarantees, and collects payments. From a consumer advocacy standpoint, Sallie Mae has received numerous complaints in independent consumer fora about practices of obfuscation, denial of correspondence, and difficulty accepting payments leading to the unethical assessment of additional fees in an obvious effort to maximize profit at the expense of trapped consumers acting in good faith.