"Analysts at Keefe Bruyette & Woods noted Thursday that funding costs are continuing to rise at Sallie Mae, the nation's largest student lender, for its sales of student loans packaged together as securities," the Associated Press reports. "Sallie Mae, formally called SLM Corp., recently completed a $4.1 billion securitization of federally-guaranteed student loans at a significantly higher cost than historical levels, analysts Sameer Gokhale and Brendan Sheehy wrote in a research note. The increased cost may in part reflect the larger size of the latest transaction compared with other recent deals involving student loan securities, they said. If funding costs don't ease, the analysts said, they believe 'there is a strong likelihood of an extension' of the government's new student-loan funding program."