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Organization and Business | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2015
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract] |
Organization and Business | Organization and Business SLM Corporation (“Sallie Mae,” “SLM,” the “Company,” “we” or “us”) is a holding company that operates through a number of subsidiaries. Its predecessor was formed in 1972 as the Student Loan Marketing Association, a federally chartered government-sponsored enterprise (the “GSE”), with the goal of furthering access to higher education by providing liquidity to the education loan marketplace. Under privatization legislation passed in 1997, we incorporated SLM Corporation as a Delaware corporation with the GSE as a subsidiary and on December 29, 2004, we terminated the federal charter and dissolved the GSE. Our primary business is to originate and service loans we make to students and their families to finance the cost of their education. We use “Private Education Loans” to mean education loans to students or their families that are not made, insured or guaranteed by any state or federal government. Private Education Loans do not include loans insured or guaranteed under the previously existing Federal Family Education Loan Program (“FFELP”). The core of our marketing strategy is to generate Private Education Loan originations by promoting our products on campuses through the financial aid offices as well as through online and direct marketing to students and their families. Since the beginning of 2006, virtually all of our Private Education Loans have been originated and funded by Sallie Mae Bank (the “Bank”), a Utah industrial bank subsidiary, which is regulated by the Utah Department of Financial Institutions (“UDFI”), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). We also operate Upromise, Inc. (“Upromise”), a consumer savings network that provides financial rewards on everyday purchases to help families save for college. On April 30, 2014, we completed our plan to legally separate into two distinct publicly traded entities: an education loan management, servicing and asset recovery business, named Navient Corporation (“Navient”); and a consumer banking business, named SLM Corporation. The separation of Navient from SLM Corporation (the “Spin-Off”) was preceded by an internal corporate reorganization, which was the first step to separate the education loan management, servicing and asset recovery business from the consumer banking business. As a result of a holding company merger under Section 251(g) of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which is referred to herein as the “SLM Merger,” all of the shares of then existing SLM Corporation’s common stock were converted, on a 1-to-1 basis, into shares of common stock of New BLC Corporation, a newly formed company that was a subsidiary of pre-Spin-Off SLM Corporation (“pre-Spin-Off SLM”), and, pursuant to the SLM Merger, New BLC Corporation replaced then existing SLM Corporation as the publicly traded registrant and changed its name to SLM Corporation. As part of the internal corporate reorganization, the assets and liabilities associated with the education loan management, servicing and asset recovery business were transferred to Navient, and those assets and liabilities associated with the consumer banking business remained with or were transferred to the newly constituted SLM Corporation. The separation and distribution were accounted for on a substantially tax-free basis.

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