Approximately 43 million Americans collectively owe $1.5 trillion in federal student loan debt, but students aren't the only ones drowning in student debt. Increasingly, parents, particularly Black parents, are taking out Parent PLUS (Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students) loans and putting off retirement to help their children pay for college.…

This Data Point uses data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). HSLS:09 is a national study of more than 23,000 students in ninth grade in 2009. Students answered surveys between 2009 and 2016. College transcripts were collected in 2017-18. This Data Point looks at the connection between views of college affordability in high…

We examine U.S. children whose parents won the lottery to trace out the effect of financial resources on college attendance. The analysis leverages federal tax and financial aid records and substantial variation in win size and timing. While per-dollar effects are modest, the relationship is weakly concave, with a high upper bound for amounts…

At the end of 2019, 43 million Americans owed over $1.5 trillion in federal student loans. The rapid increase in these balances over the past decade has led many to deem student debt a "crisis." Now, there is growing support among Democratic policymakers, and even some Republicans, to immediately cancel all or most of the federal…

In Australia, debates around school funding tend to focus on comparisons of funding between school systems and what this means for equity. In this paper, while we look at school-level funding between systems, our emphasis is on private funding in public schools with a particular emphasis on the relationship between private funding and ICSEA. Using…

In 2010, the author wrote an essay, "The New Indentured Educated Class," for "The New England Journal of Higher Education." This piece was pivotal in raising public awareness about a new group of Americans, an enormous group of people--educated and deeply in debt. At that point, few were talking about the student loan debt…

With grant and scholarship aid as well as family resources unable to keep pace with college costs, loans have become a fact of life for millions of college students each year. In deciding how and how much to borrow, these students are making highly consequential decisions that will impact their future in unknown ways. Policy should aim to reduce…

Finding the funds to attend college often means that many students must acquire loan debt through financial aid. This confusing but critically necessary process can influence college planning and enrollment decisions, post-college employment, and other important life choices, such as enrolling in graduate school, buying a home, or getting married.…

This annual report shows how fee and support systems (including grants and loans) work in higher education in Europe. It provides both a comparative overview of fees and financial support available to full-time students in 2016/17, and also includes individual country sheets outlining the main elements of national systems. In particular, the…

Between 1995-96 and 2011-12, the number of undergraduates attending postsecondary institutions in the United States increased from nearly 17 million to 23 million. The web tables presented in this report provide a comprehensive look over a 16-year period at the trends in how undergraduates enrolled in U.S. postsecondary institutions finance their…

The COVID-19 pandemic poses significant challenges for higher education across the UK. This year's cohort of university applicants now face months of uncertainty, as they try to make decisions on their future amid exam cancellations and a new system to determine grades, all without face-to-face support from their school. For students currently…

A review of net price calculators--a financial aid tool mandated by the "Higher Education Opportunity Act" of 2008--reveals that students from low-, moderate-, and middle-income families face record-level net prices at 4-year public colleges today. These net prices will translate into levels of average total loan burden far in excess of…

This "Stated Briefly" report is a companion piece that summarizes the results of another report of the same name. The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in financial aid and student enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) after the U.S. Department of Education increased the credit history…

This report demonstrates how much low-income students must stretch to pay for college, even after grant aid is taken into account. This report finds that just five of the nation's nearly 1,200 four-year colleges and universities have student bodies that are at least 30 percent low-income and offer low-income students a reasonable chance at a…

As college costs have continued to rise, states have offered families a way to save for their child's education. Private savings accounts, known as 529 savings plans, allow a family's investment to grow tax-free until a child is ready for college. Today, every state sponsors at least one 529 plan, and families have more than 10 million accounts,…