This paper uses new administrative data with detailed borrower information and lengthy repayment histories from the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) to measure rates of return on undergraduate student loans. We document substantial heterogeneity in returns based on information available at the time loans were disbursed, including province of…

Government-sponsored student loans have emerged over the decades as a primary method of financing post-secondary education across most North American jurisdictions. Despite this, the empirical literature examining the correlates of repayment difficulty and default in Canada has remained stagnant in recent years. This study taps into an…

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rapid and substantial increase in unemployment and to uncertainty about future job prospects. Despite this increased uncertainty, parents' expectations that their children will pursue postsecondary studies remained high during the lockdown--91.7% of children whose parents were surveyed in May or June 2020 were…

Stranded credit is credit that students have earned at a postsecondary institution, but cannot use or transfer because they have unpaid debts at the institution. Institutions will usually not issue official transcripts to students with debt, which results in the student being unable to formally document the credits they have acquired. This can…

This study compares tuition funding arrangements, debt at graduation, and earnings outcomes for full-time domestic undergraduates in eight Anglophone countries: the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland), United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. According to multiple estimates, the average English student faces…

This report reviews the use of loans for learning in 33 European countries and analyses the schemes in eight selected Member States: France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Finland, Sweden and the UK. The analysis shows that loan schemes vary considerably across Europe in terms of types and levels of learning covered, conditions of…

Knowledge and skills are increasingly important to innovation, productivity, economic growth and competitiveness. For Canada, a better educated population and a highly skilled workforce are vital to ensure successes in the face of growing global competition. Higher education can provide individuals with knowledge and skills needed to participate…

This study examined the education-related debt, sources of debt, and the process of acquiring accommodations for students with non-apparent (such as learning disabilities and mental health disabilities) and apparent disabilities in Canadian postsecondary education. A third group emerged during analyses, students with medical disabilities, which…

As the global marketplace becomes increasingly competitive and knowledge-driven the potential social and economic benefits of education have increased. As a result, the past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the demand for post-secondary education (PSE) worldwide. The Canadian Council on Learning monograph series,…

The increasing cost of higher education, coupled with the inability of federal and state governments to sustain parallel increases in levels of funding for student financial aid, has led to significant growth of student loans. This project analyzes the multidimensional student loans space in the US. This project also compares and contrasts some of…

In a period of student loan scandals and U.S. financial market instability impacting on the cost and availability of student loans, this paper looks at alternative models of higher education funding. In this context, it also considers the level of financial support that the government should provide to higher education.

Many discussions of student loan repayment focus on those students for whom repayment is a problem and conclude that the reliance on debt to finance postsecondary education is excessive. However, from both a pragmatic perspective and a logical perspective, a more appropriate approach is to develop different benchmarks for students in different…

This report describes the educational experiences, labour market outcomes and financing of higher education of recent graduates for Canadian postsecondary education institutions using data from the 2007 National Graduates Survey (Class of 2005). The first section describes the characteristics of graduates from college, bachelor, master and…

This guide for college students in Alberta, Canada, discusses paying back students loans. While it may be the last thing a student wants to think about as he or she leaves college, it is a good idea to plan how to pay back the loan. A Canadian student has 6 months free of payments on graduation, but then must begin paying student loans, principal…

The purpose of this study is to move beyond debates about income-contingency or non-income contingency as a means of loan repayment and focus on the specific nature of the debt burden facing students in different countries. In particular, it will explore how much students in different countries owe in student loan debt, the conditions governing…