Environmental, social, and governance
Sallie Mae is uniquely positioned to make a significant impact. The alignment and integration of our ESG and business strategies support and reinforce the strength and value of our franchise.
We are dedicated to expanding higher education access, advocating for affordability, and helping students complete their higher education. This mission-aligned work is the foundation of our ESG strategy.
Inspired by academia, we prioritize our ESG focus areas into three pillars: Majors, Minors, and Core Requirements.
Our Majors represent primary focus areas of ESG uniquely mission-aligned to Sallie Mae’s societal impact in providing opportunities for students and families to access and complete higher education. Our Majors are highly impactful and central to our core business and mission.
Our Minors complement our Majors with emerging and high-level expectations for Sallie Mae and all companies as responsible corporate citizens.
Our Core Requirements represent best-practice ESG topic areas related to risk management, privacy, corporate governance, and regulatory requirements.
Donna Vieira
Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer
Sallie Mae is more than a leader in private student lending, we’re an education solutions company committed to providing innovative products, tools, and resources to help students and families make informed, confident decisions about their higher education journey.
Our Scholarship Search is free, easy to use, and connects students with a wide variety of scholarships to help make higher education more accessible and affordable.
We offer free tools and resources to all students and families to help them make informed decisions about planning and paying for college. Our goal is to do our part in helping remove barriers to higher education, particularly for those who need the most support.
As a recognized thought leader, our reports provide insight into how American students and families approach higher education and finances—including How America Pays for College, How America Completes College, College Confidence: What America Knows About Paying for College, and more.
Through the philanthropic investments of The Sallie Mae Fund, we unlock the potential of higher education and give back to the communities where we live, work, and serve.
In 2023, Sallie Mae committed a $1 million research endowment to Delaware State University to fund a three-year "Persistence and Completion Pilot Program" to help identify barriers to college completion.
The program aims to understand and overcome obstacles to degree completion, facilitate the return to school of students who have some college but no degree, and develop policy recommendations and best practices that can be deployed at institutions nationwide.
Tony Allen Ph.D.
President, Delaware State University
Chair of President Biden’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Thurgood Marshall College Fund
Through our multi-year partnership with Thurgood Marshall College Fund, approximately $3 million in scholarships have been awarded to students through The Sallie Mae Fund’s Bridging the Dream Scholarship Program – offering opportunities to high school seniors, graduate students, and those facing unexpected financial circumstances. Learn more about the Bridging the Dream Scholarship Program.
We support mission-aligned organizations at national and local levels, with a particular emphasis on investments that further social justice, equity, and inclusion.
2023 Community investment highlights:
U.S. News and World Report has named Sallie Mae as one of the 2024-25 Best Companies to Work For based on how we support our people with a diverse, flexible work environment, opportunities for career advancement, and more.
For the third year in a row, The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption named Sallie Mae as one of the 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion have always been at the heart of our culture. Our transformative and ongoing journey continues to empower our workforce.
Our team of facility experts actively monitors and manages our environmental impact. We continue to assess opportunities to reduce our energy use and emissions, design and retrofit our office spaces with more sustainable materials, and minimize the amount of waste generated in our offices.
We are committed to measuring and disclosing our emissions on an annual basis and continue to monitor our emissions and make responsible choices about how to address them in the future.
We continue to offset our Scope 2 GHG emissions through the purchase of WindPower Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) which match our electricity use at our two largest locations.
We’ve signed a zero-waste agreement with our waste management and recycling provider, highlighting our dedication to sustainable practices.
We set high standards and expectations for the ethical conduct of our leadership, team members, and our business.
Sallie Mae’s governance framework is formed by our overarching code of conduct, corporate governance policies, Board committee charters, certificate of incorporation, and bylaws. We follow our corporate governance framework and fuel a strong commitment to diversity, corporate ethics and integrity, and business expertise, while continuing to build and maintain a diverse and effective Board of Directors.
Mary Carter Warren Franke
Chair of Sallie Mae’s Board of Directors
Please email ESG@SallieMae.com
