As our nation’s collective student loan debt tops $1.6 trillion and Democratic candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren promise to address the growing crisis, more than 100 Sallie Mae executives and sales team members responded by taking a paid vacation to Hawaii to celebrate a generation’s crippling financial burdens.
As NBC reports, the company brought its employees to the luxury Fairmont resort on Wailea beach in Maui for a five-day paid getaway to celebrate a record year — $5 billion in new student loans to 374,000 borrowers. Sallie Mae CEO Ray Quinlan told the network that the trip was a “sales get-together,” adding that, “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.”
Quinlan also told NBC that the company does a similar sales trip every year and has been doing so since the 1970s. The optics of a company celebrating saddling young adults with what in some cases becomes a lifetime of debt while relaxing at a tropical resort are, as you might expect, not great. #salliemae trended on Twitter as many angry borrowers reacted to the news.
#SallieMae & HER EMPLOYEES CAN GO to the DEEPEST & DARKEST PART OF HELL, While they're living it up, MOST OF US CAN'T AFFORD TO TRAVEL ANYWHERE.. We're ONLY PAYING THE INTEREST on these loans.. https://t.co/213VII2CTY
— Mrs.Creole Roux Princess♊ (@dankie1982) October 18, 2019
Sanders weighed in as well, tweeting “Cancel all student debt.”
Cancel all student debt. https://t.co/ZdLC9gaUqY
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 18, 2019
Student loan debt is now reportedly the second-highest form of consumer debt, behind mortgages. More than 44 million Americans currently have student loan debt.
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