Federal higher education policy has shifted over the past few decades from grants to loans as the primary means for providing access to postsecondary education for low- and moderate-income families. With this shift, policy makers have begun tracking student loan default rates as a key indicator of the efficacy of student loan programs. This effort…

Whereas many prior studies evaluated the association between borrower or institutional characteristics and default behavior, the general finding of most researchers today is that college success plays a bigger role in predicting who will default than either the background of the borrower or the type of institution attended. All else being equal,…