Sallie Mae paid for employees to go on Hawaiian retreat to celebrate $5 billion in sales

Student loan servicer Sallie Mae paid for more than 100 of its employees to go on a Hawaiian retreat in August to celebrate a record $5 billion worth of sales.

“We said, ’Hey, look, Maui is a pretty nice spot,” Ray Quinlan, CEO of Sallie Mae, said to NBC News while on the grounds of the Fairmont Resort on Hawaii’s Wailea beach.

The trip celebrated a year of $5 billion in sales to 374,000 borrowers. The sales came as combined U.S. student debt topped $1.6 trillion.

Mr. Quinlan said the trip was not an “incentive” based trip, calling a “sales get-together for all of our salespeople.” He added that Sallie Mae has been taking similar retreats since it was a public loan servicer in the 1970s.

However, many have accused Sallie Mae — now a private, publicly traded company — of causing the current student debt crisis.

“We worry about private student loans. They don’t have the same protections for borrowers” as federal loans have, said Ashley Harrington, senior policy counsel on student debt at the nonpartisan Center for Responsible Lending.

“Sallie Mae had a big part in creating a place where we are in the student debt crisis,” Ms. Harrington said, adding that debt leads to people not buying or creating businesses that could help the economy.

The Delaware company is facing multiple lawsuits from individuals and even the Illinois state attorney general for unfair practices.

In a statement to The Washington Times, a Sallie Mae spokesperson denied the allegations, saying that less than 2% of borrowers default on their loans and that the company only accounts for 1.4% of the entire student loan debt market.

“College should be more affordable, and student loan providers have an obligation to lend responsibly. That’s why we assess every applicant’s financial situation, and if they haven’t demonstrated their ability to handle the debt, we say no,” spokesperson Rick Castellano said.

“Education is an investment in one’s future, and that investment is transformative. We support efforts that provide access to higher education to those in need of assistance,” he added. “There is a real conversation to be had about college affordability and student lending, but it cannot take place without the facts.”