NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Sept. 19, 2011--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today made public its ratings on SLM Student Loan Trust 2003-1's class A-5 notes at the issuer's request (see list). We placed our ratings on the class A-5 notes on CreditWatch negative on July 15, 2011, along with the transaction's outstanding class B notes and ratings from approximately 599 other structured finance transactions, after we placed the U.S.'s 'AAA' long- and 'A-1+' short-term sovereign ratings on CreditWatch negative on July 14, 2011. We will continue to review the Federal Family Education Loan Program student loan-backed asset-backed securities transactions that remain on CreditWatch negative due to U.S. sovereign credit risk exposure, and take rating actions as we deem appropriate.
