Jamie Gorelick sent the following response to Slate on Monday afternoon:

Jacob -

I am out of the country but wanted to get you a quick response to your piece. As a lawyer, when I am engaged by clients to affect policy, I try to make sure that I am comfortable with the policy direction that the client wants to take, which I did before taking on the representation of Sallie Mae.

Sallie Mae has endorsed the key goal of the Obama Administration proposal which is to use the earnings from government -- as opposed to private lender -- funding of student loans to support the funding of Pell Grants. This is a different position than some other lenders have taken and a vastly different position than Sallie Mae had taken in the past. The concept that Sallie Mae has been discussing with policy-makers would permit lenders to provide origination and servicing on a fee-for-service basis, competitively, and lenders would retain some of the risk in the loan to provide an incentive to avoid defaults. The concept is described here.

I understand that there are concerns about whether the Department of Education has the capacity to take on all lending services for all schools, particularly at a time when many schools are struggling. This alternative - a choice for schools - would eliminate any implementation risk.

I know that there are those who believe that lenders should have no role and that the sole provider of services should be the government (and its contractors). The range of disagreement here, though, is small compared to the argument over the last two decades whether student loans should be funded by the government or by the private sector, on which Sallie Mae agrees with the position of the Obama Administration.