SLM Corporation's preferred shares, trading under the ticker SLMBP, currently carry a 7.75% dividend yield at a share price of $74.30 as of September 20, 2026, according to dividend data on the stock. The preferred stock is labeled "Recently Increased" after its most recent quarterly payment of $1.4393 per share, declared July 22, 2026 and paid September 15, 2026, following an ex-dividend date of September 4, 2026. That payment annualizes to $5.7572 per share under the stock's quarterly schedule.
Yet the same dataset shows a very different trend line over a longer window. Annual dividend totals for 2024 and 2025 point to a one-year decline of 14.6%, a pattern that first stood out in data tracked on Dividendly, a Madison Labs research site. The apparent contradiction, a recent increase paired with negative trailing growth, stems from how the two figures are measured: the "Recently Increased" tag reflects the most recent declared payment relative to the prior one, while the 1-year growth figure compares full-year dividend totals across 2024 and 2025, a period that evidently included a reduction elsewhere in the payment history.
That distinction matters for anyone parsing the stock's income profile. SLM's own payment record shows the preferred stock has 21 years of dividend payments on file, which is enough history to count as "Enduring" under the site's four-part durability screen. But that same screen marks the stock as failing two of the other three checks: "Accelerating," which looks for at least three consecutive annual increases and currently shows zero, and "Flawless," which requires an unbroken record free of cuts, a condition SLMBP does not meet because a reduction appears in its payment history. The stock's overall rank score sits at 54 out of 100, below the 70-point threshold the site's "Solid" check requires even though the yield clears its 2% bar comfortably.
Why this may matter to income-focused investors comes down to payout sustainability. The preferred stock's trailing-twelve-month payout ratio, measured through the quarter ended June 30, 2026, stands at 94.45%, meaning nearly all of the company's trailing earnings over that period were paid out as dividends, leaving relatively little cushion. A high payout ratio does not by itself indicate a dividend is at risk, but it does reduce the margin for error if earnings soften, a dynamic that becomes more relevant given the stock's mixed growth signal.
By way of background, SLM Corporation, headquartered in Newark, Delaware and founded in 1972, originates and services private education loans for students and families in the United States and also offers retail deposit products including high-yield savings accounts, money market accounts and certificates of deposit. The company operated under the name New BLC Corporation before adopting the SLM Corporation name in December 2013. Its common stock trades on Nasdaq alongside the preferred shares, and the preferred issue's price has ranged between $72.00 and $76.34 over the past 52 weeks through closes on September 18, 2026, putting the current $74.30 level roughly in the middle of that band. SLM's market capitalization stood at $6.66 billion as of the same date, based on 89.67 million shares outstanding implied by that figure.
The broader market backdrop offers some context for income seekers weighing preferred shares against other yield-generating options. Deposit-based alternatives remain part of that conversation: CD rates as of September 19, 2026 were being advertised up to 4.40% APY on a two-year term, while mortgage rates were reported easing slightly heading into the weekend, according to Yahoo Finance rate roundups. Those figures sit well below SLMBP's stated 7.75% yield, though the preferred stock carries equity-market price risk and payout variability that fixed-term deposit products do not.
Going forward, investors tracking SLMBP are likely to watch whether the company's next declared dividend, for which no ex-date has yet been set, continues the pattern of quarterly payments at or above the current $1.4393 level, and whether the trailing-twelve-month payout ratio moves closer to or further from full coverage of earnings as SLM reports subsequent quarters. The interplay between the "Recently Increased" label and the negative one-year growth figure is likely to remain a point investors weigh differently depending on whether they prioritize the most recent declaration or the longer annual trend, a distinction the underlying data leaves open to interpretation rather than resolving on its own.