Sallie Mae: 2,000 Jobs To Be Created As Overseas Operations Return to U.S.

Yahoo! Finance:

RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sallie Mae, the nation's leading provider of saving- and paying-for-college programs, today announced that it will create 2,000 jobs by returning its overseas operations to the U.S. Specifically, Sallie Mae will hire call center, information technology, and operations support positions in various communities across the country.

Read the whole story: Yahoo! Finance

Comments

[darcyf]

OMG...Sallie Mae is the WORST. If you have a student loan, you know what I mean. You call and you get someone who barely understands what you are saying if at all and even if they do, they don't understand many of the most important issues surrounding student loan debt.

If you have a student loan through Sallie Mae, you should expect ZERO customer service. They say that if your payments are made on time for a set amt of time, your interest rate will decrease by some fraction of a point. When it doesn't, don't expect it to have the issue addressed. I called SIX times and couldn't get ANYONE who spoke enough English to help. You're in a panic to meet a deadline to get a good interest rate on consolidation and you have a question? GOOD LUCK, but do yourself a favor and save yourself the heartache...figure it out yourself if you can or else FORGET ABOUT IT.

They are the ABSOLUTE WORST. Student loans are as uniquely American (Maybe some other developed countries have student loans, but NOWHERE NEAR the magnitude we have here...I have over $100K) as the health care mess we have created. Maybe that's why they are so utterly incompetent, but it is a travesty that Sallie Mae makes it's money from US Taxpayers and then outsources jobs abroad. I hope they do something to help students, but I PRAY that they entrust NOTHING to SallieMae.

[jozinha]

This unpatriotic company, which has made a fortune off the public dole, is bringing back the jobs they off-shored to other countries just to protect themselves from Obama's plan to shut them down and allow students to get loans directly from the governmental agencies.

They deserve to be shut down.

[Tyrione]

Agreed.

[shaaronie]

This sounds like great news to this unemployed, looking frantically for a decent paying job, person. I hope this is the beginning of a trend. How on earth did companies not think this would effect their bottom line. If you outsource all of your jobs overseas, how do you expect your American customer's to be able to afford your products? Duh!!!

[Graham7720]

We applied for a loan from Sallie Mae three years ago for over 8000 dollars. We still have over 6000 to pay at over 200 a month. Their accounting practices stink. We have had so much heartache ith this outfit.
I smell a rat. I'm sure they are doing this for some ulterior motive.

[jozinha]

Read the article.

[thaneb]

Though positive vis-a-vis US employment, a skeptic will notice the timing of the announcement. With the backing of the Obama administration, student loans are moving toward direct funding from the government (the direct loan program). This achieves savings by doing away with the "middle man". Seems like a cynical ploy by SM to bring lobbying pressure contra to the direct loan program.

[birchtree3]

Yeah!!!!! It's about time. I just paid off our Sallie Mae student loans and was absolutely relieved to do it. When I would call, the on hold time is very long and the "push this number and that number and enter this number", etc. is horrible. Then, when I'd finally get a human being, all the customer services reps are located in foreign countries....India, I believe, and it was an absolute headache trying to get information expediently when talking to them. They were all very professional and mostly knowledgeable, but their limited English skills and heavy accents made it an ordeal. It took longer to get help because things often had to be repeated and the reps didn't understand the nuances of the English language. The other headache was that I would get off the phone resenting that Americans were out of work but Sallie Mae was employing foreign workers. I am thrilled that they are returning their operations to the U.S. (but feel for the foreign reps who may be out of a job now). I am done dealing with them (thank G*d) but at least others will not have to deal with similar headaches in the future.

[jeliz]

When Chrysler offshored their call center, I refused to speak to someone from India. I always got an American on the phone. Screw 'em. They're taking our jobs.

[AlsoSarah]

This is very good news for the towns named in the article. All of these towns have been hit hard by the recession.

[KennethBowen]

There should certainly be no tax or government incentive to offshore jobs.

As a programmer, my experience with the H1b program is not good either - it simply creates a pool of workers that companies can take advantage of and displaces qualified eligible workers.

[FreedomAgain]

I saw a job offer they posted on the internet a couple of months ago. It said they were looking for an offshoring manager, to relocate all their IT jobs overseas. I wonder how many they will keep/move overseas despite these new positions reported.

[iawill]

I am glad to see Sallie Mae take this step. I did not know that they had sent so many jobs overseas and was quite offended to learn they had done so, especially considering they make their money from students attending colleges in the United States. That is the ultimate insult. Now that they have learned the error of their ways, hopefully other companies will follow suit and bring more jobs back to the states to help stimulate the economy.

[jozinha]

Read the article and others about this move. They're bringing back the jobs to make it more difficult for Obama to shut them down.

I'm disgusted.

[mleigh]

Just days ago I filed a complaint with Sallie Mae regarding this very issue. I graduated last June and I would be glad to take a job with Sallie Mae - here in the USA.

[emerywood]

Hope this is not because foreign students are no longer interested in coming to the U.S. for
college education. But, I don't think they had been outsourcing jobs as suggested by
some people. They are working as recruit centers for foreign students, right ?

[PoliticalAmazon]

This is what ALL U.S. companies should be doing.

We cannot pull ourselves out of a depression/recession if we spend taxpayer funds to create jobs (a very expensive endeavor) only to then, once they are created and American worker know-how has problem-solved the specifics of the job, then send it overseas where other countries and other nations' workers will profit from our tax dollars.

[Porter]

This is a wonderful move forward from a company that has lived and thrived off the public dole for decades now, and shipped government and loan dollars outside the United States. Over the years I've had numerous essential contacts with Sallie Mae's overseas call centers, and believe me, it's been incredibly frustrating! And to have to wait 20 minutes to get through to someone with whom you just can't communicate and who will never pass you to a superior? AWFUL!

Despite the comments of other posters, I've only ever reached people with very strong accents and occasionally very weak understanding of regular vernacular American English. On many occasions i've had to ask people to please repeat what they just said. Sometimes it's the fault of the phone connection or all the background noise in their call center, but mostly I think it's the fault of the individuals hired by Sallie Mae in India or wherever.

Without fail, I've been frustrated with each and every call and finally decided to just give up, keep paying from the various conflicting payment books they've sent me (sometimes a call center person would send me a second book for the one account, but with a different payment amount and payment schedule...), and hope it all works out. Sallie Mae online is also a nightmare. The government-run NDEA program in the 70's was a blessing. Let's dump Sallie Mae entirely!

[TLThomas]

Great news! America first!

[jozinha]

Read about their motive.