"Sallie Mae, the largest U.S. student loan company, posted a smaller-than-expected drop in earnings, and said its funding costs are improving after government efforts to prevent education loan shortages," Reuters reports. "The company's difficulties are not over, but the results were better than the first quarter, when Sallie Mae posted a net loss and said it could not lend profitably amid the credit crunch. The specifics of how the law will be implemented have not yet been worked out, but the government's show of extra support for education finance helped Sallie Mae sell more than $7 billion of bonds backed by student loans during the second quarter, compared with $4.7 billion in the first quarter."