Sallie Mae and other private student loan lenders prey on naive students with promises of education funding. Their customer service tactics are to increase the term of the loans without clearly communicating the consequences of such actions. These companies automate interest capitalization during in school deferment periods and are slow to non-responsive when asked about clarification in the contracts signed by the students.
Since student loans are not cleared by bankruptcy or other financial tools in battling high debt issues, these companies need to be highly regulated for fraudulent and predatory lending practices.