The Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA; P.L. 89-329, as amended) authorizes the operation of three federal student loan programs: the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) program, the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, and the Federal Perkins Loan program. While new loans are authorized to be made only through the Direct…

Student loan debt continues to grow at a rapid pace (Scott-Clayton, 2018). The total debt burden for each student graduating from college is over $35,000, and that number is likely to gradually rise as tuition costs and fees at institutions of higher education increase (Friedman, 2018). The problem is not that students accrue debt but rather the…

In an era of escalating higher education costs, students and families need to be aware of all of their options for financing college and how those financing options work. Financing remains one the top factors for choosing a college, especially for students with greater financial need. Those who do not receive the award packages and financial…

Is the end in sight for college tuition hikes? Tuition and fees at public colleges and universities consistently have risen twice or even three times as fast as comparable increases in the Consumer Price Index in recent years. Since 2000 these costs have even grown 60 percent faster than health care costs. The results have been rapidly rising…

Since both colleges and students have very different resources and starting points, good policy should strengthen the ability of campuses and students to succeed and not punish them for taking important chances despite limited resources and greater challenges. Policymakers are interested in using student loan repayment rates as an accountability…

The cohort default rate (CDR) has worked to reduce students' risk of default, but decades of experience have also revealed weaknesses that policymakers must tackle. "Driving Down Default" outlines key priorities for strengthening the CDR to further reduce student loan default, including specific recommendations to protect against…

This report and the accompanying interactive web tool are a first step toward helping students sort through the 37,000 programs in the College Scorecard data to learn which programs offer a pathway to good earnings and which threaten more debt. Part 1 examines earnings differences across different institutions. Just as there is overlap in…

As our country is on the brink of a new presidential administration and new Congress, amid a global pandemic, the importance of investing in and strengthening our nation's postsecondary education system has never been more important. Concerns over college access, affordability, and transparency are colliding with the growing demand in the…

Some of the biggest debtors in the twenty-first century are not small business owners or first-time homeowners, but rather university students who take out massive debt in the belief that it is an investment in their future. Like housing loans before the Global Financial Crisis, student loan debt is today being packaged and re-packaged into exotic…

"Casualties of College Debt" uses the latest federal data on delinquency and default to better understand who student loan defaulters are, explores key themes of who defaults and why that emerged across over 20 in-depth conversations with a diverse group of experts, and lifts up the lived experience of default through voices of borrowers…

The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) "2016 Student Financial Services Policies and Procedures Report" illuminates a wide range of college and university financial service issues. The information collected through NACUBO's survey and presented here provides a window of insight into the activities,…

Geography is an important part of economic opportunity. This is increasingly true in the labor market for skilled workers. Due to monetary and nonmonetary costs of migration, college attendance is less likely for those who live farther from postsecondary institutions. The college educated have also become increasingly concentrated in larger labor…

As overall student loan indebtedness in the United States has increased over the years, many borrowers have found themselves unable to repay their student loans. Ordinarily, declaring bankruptcy is a means by which a debtor may "discharge"--that is, obtain relief from--debts he is unable to repay. However, Congress, based upon its…

This report analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Education on the outcomes of New York's federal student loan borrowers who entered repayment in 2012, covering the period from 2012 to 2016. This data brief--the first comprehensive analysis of five-year student loan outcomes in New York--reveals that the student loan default rate in New York…

In this study, we examine whether institutional-level characteristics, student demographics, and state conditions are associated with student loan repayment rates and cohort-level loan default rates. We separately explore these characteristics for each of four higher education sectors: public 2-year colleges, for-profit colleges, public 4-year…