For both efficiency and equity reasons, student loans schemes have been introduced by several countries. Empirical work has been carried out in order to measure the effectiveness of these policies, but, with few exceptions, their results are not comparable because of their concentration on specific aspects. The present work suggests a comprehensive framework for the analysis of the effectiveness of student loans policies. Starting with the identification of the different possible goals of a loan scheme and taking into consideration the main elements of the policy design, the paper builds a system of four ideal types suggesting appropriate effectiveness indicators for each of them. (Contains 1 table and 3 notes.)