Allowance for Loan Losses - Average Recorded Investment and Interest Income Recognized for TDR (Details) - TDR Loans - USD ($) $ in Thousands	3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2019	Mar. 31, 2018
Accounts, Notes, Loans and Financing Receivable [Line Items]
Average Recorded Investment	$ 1,312,729	$ 1,032,232
Interest Income Recognized	$ 21,566	$ 17,847

Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

No definition available.

+ Details

Name:	us-gaap_AccountsNotesAndLoansReceivableLineItems
Namespace Prefix:	us-gaap_
Data Type:	xbrli:stringItemType
Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	duration

- Definition

Average amount of investment of impaired financing receivables with related allowance for credit losses and without a related allowance for credit losses.

+ References

Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 310
-SubTopic 10
-Section 50
-Paragraph 15
-Subparagraph (c)(1)
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=84173941&loc=d3e5212-111524

Reference 2: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 310
-SubTopic 10
-Section 50
-Paragraph 17
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=84173941&loc=d3e5258-111524

+ Details

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Namespace Prefix:	us-gaap_
Data Type:	xbrli:monetaryItemType
Balance Type:	debit
Period Type:	duration

- Definition

Amount of interest income recognized on a cash-basis method of accounting that the financing receivables (with related allowance for credit losses and without a related allowance for credit losses) were impaired.

+ References

+ Details

Name:	us-gaap_ImpairedFinancingReceivableInterestIncomeCashBasisMethod
Namespace Prefix:	us-gaap_
Data Type:	xbrli:monetaryItemType
Balance Type:	credit
Period Type:	duration

- Details

Name:	us-gaap_AccountsNotesLoansAndFinancingReceivablesByIndustryOfCounterpartyTypeAxis=slm_TDRLoansMember
Namespace Prefix:
Data Type:	na
Balance Type:
Period Type: