On August 24, 2022, President Biden announced that his administration would be cancelling $10,000 -- $20,000 of student debt for middle- and lower-income borrowers. Naturally, this announcement has unleashed a wave of follow-up questions among borrowers. This fact sheet is intended to help Californians with student loans navigate the process of…

This study seeks to assess whether self-interest influences support for two policies to cancel student debt--one forgiving all student debt and one taking a means-tested approach to debt forgiveness. Each of these policy proposals offers a material benefit to certain groups of individuals while imposing cost or having no benefit to others, which…

Since the late 1990s, the number of college student loan debtors has increased rapidly in Japan. Despite the uniqueness of Japanese higher education policies in terms of tuition levels and heavy reliance on educational loans rather than grants, few studies have focused on the influence of student loans on adult youths' lives. This study is the…

"Student Debt and the Class of 2020" is The Institute for College Access & Success' (TICAS') sixteenth annual report on the student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges, documenting changes and variation in student debt across states and colleges. State averages for debt at graduation in 2020 ranged from $18,350…

The volume and number of federal student loans, which provide financing to make higher education more accessible, have grown over the past few decades. In 2017, the most recent year for which detailed information was available, $96 billion in new federal student loans was disbursed to 8.6 million students, compared with $36 billion (in 2017…

This report aims to expand the window into federal student loan defaults beyond the event of default itself. It attempts to provide the most robust look to date of what happens to student loans "after a borrower defaults and why." Ultimately, this information should help policymakers evaluate the current set of policies related to…

As of March 2019, 43 million Americans held student loans provided through federal government programs, the largest segment of the education loan market. But this system is under pressure as more borrowers struggle to repay, a problem compounded by the complexity of the repayment process. Research on the pathways borrowers take through the…

The purpose of this study was to explore the narratives of Black women repaying student loan debt. Black Feminist Thought (BFT) was used as the framework. Selected participants had to be at least 18 years, self-identify as a Black woman, owe either U.S. federal and/or private student loans, and not be enrolled in a college degree program. Snowball…

In Fall 2022, the U.S. Education Department unveiled a drastic overhaul of federal student loan policies. The new rules serve as a key vehicle to advance the Biden administration's higher education agenda. However, some of the final regulations look quite different from the policy proposals initially outlined in President Joe Biden's campaign…

This paper summarises the evolution of student contributions in Australia since 1989, exploring system redesigns that commenced in 1997, 2005 and 2021. Public and private benefits are recurring themes in setting student contributions, both as high-level justifications for government policy and in pricing specific disciplines. Professor Andrew…

As Washington prepares to welcome a new Congress in January 2023, incoming policymakers who want to improve education for every student and give parents more control over where and how their children are educated have many policy options at their disposal. New Members of Congress who want to protect taxpayers and rein in college costs also have…

The federal government's Direct Loan program dominates the student-loan market today, issuing 90 percent of all loans made across the country each year. Students pursuing everything from short-term certificates to master's degrees qualify for nearly $100 billion in loans every year at terms more generous than most private lenders would offer.…

"Liberal Education" spoke with two higher education policy experts on what they expect and hope for from the Biden administration. Viviann Anguiano is an associate director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress. Eric R. Felix is an assistant professor at San Diego State University, specializing in higher…

The Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 was meant to unlock the secret to upward economic mobility by granting more Americans the chance to obtain a college degree. Nonetheless, the originators failed to recognize how this dramatic shift in federal higher education policy would affect generations to come. Today the federal government originates or…

The overall financial structure of US higher education has changed dramatically over the past 30 years, resulting in a significant reduction of public funding. One result of this shift has been the steadily increasing costs of tuition as an increasing portion of the financial structure of higher education is shifted to students. Increased costs to…