Sallie Mae says it originated $3.2 billion in student loans last quarter, helping push profits sharply higher.
The Reston-based company had second quarter net income of $724 million, or $1.61 per share, compared to $297 million, or 66 cents per share a year ago. Almost all of the gains came from money it makes on student loans.
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College costs keep spiraling upward, and now the cost of borrowing to pay for higher education is about to spike, too.
Students and their parents have taken comfort in a half decade of ultra-cheap college loans, loading up on debt to cover the bills. About eight million people borrowed $60 billion this year in education loans issued or guaranteed by the federal government. Now only those who act quickly will be able to keep a lid on the cost of that debt.
A combination of rising interest rates and legislative changes to the student-loan program will alter the student-loan landscape beginning Saturday. Rates on existing Stafford loans - the bedrock government-guaranteed student loans that 44 percent of full-time undergraduates rely on to pay tuition bills - change annually and are pegged to 91-day Treasury bills.