全国各地的美国人都在努力偿还学生贷款债务——全国高达1.6万亿美元——通常从事多种工作，有时宣布破产以保护他们仅剩的少量资产，美国最大的贷款公司之一莎莉·梅(Sallie Mae)的贷款授权人获得了免费毛伊岛之旅的奖励。
最初报告者全国广播公司莱斯特·赫特晚间新闻今年8月，莎莉·梅让100名员工飞到夏威夷晒晒太阳，庆祝他们卖给37万多人的50亿美元学生贷款。与此同时，据统计，在将近4500万美国学生中福布斯杂志上，许多人很难偿还贷款，因为他们代表莎莉·梅(Sallie Mae)等贷款人涉嫌可疑的贷款行为(如从事次级贷款业务，授权贷款给那些可能无法偿还贷款的人)。
莎莉·梅的首席执行官雷·昆兰坚称这次旅行不是一次“激励性的旅行”，而是一个“好地方”
39岁的佩奇·麦克丹尼尔(Paige McDaniel)向美国全国广播公司新闻频道(NBC News)描述了她从纳文得到的反应，纳文是2014年由莎莉·梅(Sallie Mae)出资成立的一家贷款公司(但在财务上独立于莎莉·梅)，当时她因获得硕士学位而获得12万美元贷款，每月被罚款1500美元。
麦克丹尼尔告诉美国全国广播公司记者:“当我告诉他们，你知道，我负担不起，我们能做一些付款安排吗，他们基本上说，‘非常抱歉，如果你不付款，我们会扣押你的房子并扣发你的工资。’。
纳文特说麦克丹尼尔现在欠公司304，000美元。
麦克丹尼尔说:“任何人都不可能从下面挖出来。”。“他们只是看不到另一边有家庭。”
但是当麦克丹尼尔被迫宣布破产时，莎莉·梅的首席执行官雷·昆兰在夏威夷，告诉美国全国广播公司新闻，公司选择在毛伊岛聚会是因为那是一个“好地方”
“我们说，‘嘿，看，毛伊岛是一个非常好的地方，’”昆兰告诉全国广播公司新闻。
但这并不全是员工的工作和娱乐。昆兰说，这不是一次“激励旅行”，虽然员工可以选择带家人一起去，但必须自己掏钱。
昆兰对全国广播公司新闻说:“如果你想待几天或者想带家人来，那就由你决定。”。
推特上的用户仍然困惑不解，有些人甚至分享了自己挣扎着摆脱债务的故事。
学生贷款债务问题很快成为2020年总统竞选中的热点问题，参议员伯尼·桑德斯和伊丽莎白·沃伦都将学生贷款豁免作为他们竞选的基石。
“学生债务危机是真实的，它正在摧毁数百万人——尤其是有色人种，”沃伦在一份声明中说福布斯6月份的杂志。“是时候做出决定了:我们是要成为一个只会帮助富人和强者变得越来越富有和强大的国家，还是要成为一个投资于未来的国家？”
一份来自非营利研究组织城市研究所的报告估计，到2023年，40%有学生贷款债务的人将拖欠还款。
但是对于像麦克丹尼尔这样的人来说，她担心的不仅仅是她的债务，还有她如何支付孩子的教育费用。
麦克丹尼尔告诉美国全国广播公司新闻，“这不仅仅是我这一代人的原因，还影响到我的孩子。”。"我该怎么送他们去大学？"
SALLIE MAE EXECUTIVES CELEBRATE IN HAWAII AS AMERICANS ARE CRIPPLED BY STUDENT LOAN DEBT
As Americans across the country struggle to pay off their student loan debts—a whopping $1.6 trillion nationally—often working multiple jobs and sometimes declaring bankruptcy to protect what little assets they have left, the people authorizing those loans at one of the largest lending companies in the United States, Sallie Mae, are getting rewarded with a free trip to Maui.
Originally reported by NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Sallie Mae flew 100 employees to Hawaii in August for a little fun in the sun to celebrate the $5 billion in student loans they sold to more than 370,000 people. Meanwhile, of the nearly 45 million Americans who have some kind of student debt, according to Forbes magazine, many struggle to pay back the loans because of alleged suspicious lending practices (like engaging in subprime lending practices and authorizing loans to people who likely cannot pay them back) on behalf of lenders like Sallie Mae.
Sallie Mae CEO Ray Quinlan insisted the trip wasn't an "incentive trip," just a "nice spot."
Paige McDaniel, 39, described to NBC News the reaction she received from Navient—a lending company created as an off-shoot from Sallie Mae in 2014 (yet financially a separate independent company from Sallie Mae)—when she was hit with a $1,500 a month bill for the $120,000 loan she took out to get her Master's degree.
"When I told them that, you know, I couldn't afford that, could we make some payment arrangements, they essentially said, 'So sorry, we'll put a lien on your house and garnish your wages if you don't make those payments,'" McDaniel told NBC News.
Navient says McDaniel now owes the company $304,000.
"There's no way anybody can ever dig themselves out from underneath that," said McDaniel. "They just don't see that there are families on the other side of this."
But while McDaniel has been forced to declare bankruptcy, Sallie Mae CEO Ray Quinlan was in Hawaii, telling NBC News the company picked the get together in Maui because it was a "nice spot."
"We said, 'Hey, look, Maui is a pretty nice spot,'" Quinlan told NBC News.
But it's not all work and no play for the employees. Quinlan said it was not an "incentive trip" and that while employees had the option of bringing their families along, it had to be on their own dime.
"If you wanted to stay a few days or want to bring family, that's up to you," Quinlan told NBC News.
Users on Twitter were still perplexed, some even shared their own stories of struggling to get out from under the debt.
The issue of student loan debt has quickly become a hot issue on the 2020 presidential campaign trail, with senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both making student loan forgiveness a cornerstone of their campaign.
"The student debt crisis is real and it's crushing millions of people—especially people of color," Warren said in a statement to Forbes magazine in June. "It's time to decide: Are we going to be a country that only helps the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful, or are we going to be a country that invests in its future?"
A report from the non-profit research group the Urban Institute estimates that by 2023, 40 percent of people with student loan debt will default on their payments.
But for people like McDaniel, it's not just her debt she's worried about, it's how she's going to pay for her children's education.
"It's not just my generation cause I have the loans, it affects my children," McDaniel told NBC News. "How am I going to send them to college?"
