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…

For-profit colleges do not always recruit aggressively; nor do they always shortchange students. But the problem of colleges systematically overpromising and underdelivering, when it does happen, has largely been a for-profit phenomenon. The abuses have been the most widespread and most damaging when they have been fueled by government grants and…

Student loan debt and defaults have been steadily rising, igniting public worry about the associated public and private risks. This has led to controversial regulatory attempts to curb defaults by holding colleges, particularly those in the for-profit sector, increasingly accountable for the student loan repayment behavior of their students. Such…

For-profit, or proprietary, colleges are the fastest-growing postsecondary schools in the nation, enrolling a disproportionately high share of disadvantaged and minority students and those ill-prepared for college. Because these schools, many of them big national chains, derive most of their revenue from taxpayer-funded student financial aid, they…

For-profit, or proprietary, colleges are the fastest growing postsecondary schools in the nation, enrolling a disproportionately high share of disadvantaged and minority students and those ill-prepared for college. Because these schools--many of them big national chains--derive most of their revenue from taxpayer-funded student financial aid, they…

This study examined the rate of participation in, and default on loans from, the Federal Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) and the Federal Supplemental Loans for Students (SLS) programs. In particular the study sought to know the volume of loans made to students or parents of students attending proprietary (trade) schools and other…

This report examines the effectiveness of recent federal government efforts through amendments to the Higher Education Act (1993) to reduce student loan defaults. Key measures to curb defaults had been to make schools with high student loan default rates ineligible for federal student loan programs. However, many institutions have challenged…

This report presents the testimony of the Associate Director of Education and Employment Issues of the Health, Education, and Human Services Division of the General Accounting Office (GAO) concerning the participation of postsecondary institutions in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), which makes direct student loans to students.…

As part of a larger program to identify and analyze federal programs at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, this publication presents an evaluation of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), formerly the Guaranteed Student Loan Program. The analysis argues that the program has not been successful in protecting the…