debt is discount notes. Discount notes are unsecured general obligation securities that are issued in book-entry form through the Federal Reserve Banks. Farmer Mac uses discount notes to meet short-term funding needs. The maturities range from overnight to 365 days and are offered on a contin- uous basis. Farmer Mac discount notes are available with cash-, regular-, and skip-day settlement dates. Exhibit 4.14 presents a Bloomberg DES (Security Description) for a Farmer Mac discount note that was issued on October 24, 2000 and matured on October 24, 2001. The maturity for Farmer Mac discount notes will always fall on a business day. As can be seen in the "ISSUE SIZE" box in bottom center of the screen, the minimum face value is $1,000 with additional increments of $1,000 thereafter.   Exhibit 4.15 is a Bloomberg YA (Yield Analysis) screen for the same Farmer Mac discount note. From this screen, we see that the discount yield is 2.28516% that corresponds to a price of 99.784179 (per $100 of face value) with settlement on September 20, 2001. From the "CASH- FLOW ANALYSIS" box on the right-hand side of the screen, it can be seen that an investor can purchase $1 million face value package of notes that mature on October 24, 2001 for $997,841.79. The interest income of$2,158.21is fully taxable at the federal, state, and local levels.       STUDENT LOAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION   The Student Loan Marketing Association ("Sallie Mae") is a GSE estab- lished by Congress in 1972 to increase the availability of student loans. Sallie Mae purchases from lenders guaranteed student loans originated under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and corre- spondingly makes loans to lenders secured by student loans. Of the approximately $25 billion loaned to students annually, about 70% are provided by private lenders under the FFELP. AgencyInstruments       Sallie Mae is a subsidiary of USA Education, Inc. (formerly SLM Holdings). In September 1996, legislation was passed such that Sallie Maes GSE status will be phased out by September 30, 2008 and it will be fully privatized. Unitl its GSE status terminates, Sallie Mae maintains a direct line of credit with the U.S. Treasury. Moreover, Sallie Mae is under the regulatory aegis of the U.S. Treasury specifically, the Office of Sallie Mae Oversight. Sallie Mae generally funds its student loan portfolio by issuing float-