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…

Parent PLUS loans are a growing concern due to their limited income-driven repayment protections and their potential to maintain longstanding racial wealth gaps. Previous research has examined factors associated with student debt burdens of college graduates, but no research has examined factors related to parent borrowing for college. In this…

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 2017/18, and also includes individual country sheets outlining the main elements of national systems. In particular, the…

This Data Point uses data from four administrations of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:2000, NPSAS:04, NPSAS:08, and NPSAS:12) to briefly present trends in out-of-pocket net price for college, the amount that students and their families must pay to attend college after subtracting grants, loans, work-study, and all other…

The main objective of this study is to identify differences in the freshman financial aid packages of low-income, high-achieving minority students in public and private institutions. Our results suggest that private and selective institutions can offer better financial aid packages that enable them to recruit higher numbers of low-income,…

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…

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 requirements necessary to obtain Parental Loans for Undergraduate Students (PLUS). The study used institution-level data to examine…

The SREB Fact Book on Higher Education includes data on the population and economy, enrollment, degrees, student tuition and financial aid, faculty and administrators, revenue and expenditures. With more than 100 tables of detailed information, the Fact Book is one of the nation's most respected and most comprehensive collections of comparative…

Examines the matriculation behavior of high-ability students choosing among a small set of higher education institutions that are close competitors. Results suggest that students' choices are influenced by net attendance costs and that attendance cost effects decline as parental income increases. Nonmonetary and nonacademic factors, such as…

Traces state financial aid to private colleges in New York State, culminating in McGeorge Bundy's subsidy program beginning in 1967. Questions whether students have actually benefited from Bundy Aid. A statistical analysis shows that private college tuition levels are determined more by academic quality than by costs, religious affiliation, or…

The Department of Justice has ordered private colleges to turn over financial records for an inquiry into whether they violate federal antitrust laws in the way they set tuition and award financial aid. The practice of exchanging information about applicants so students receive comparable financial-aid is being investigated. (MLW)

Describes how 28 private colleges have endorsed a set of policies designed to preserve need-blind admissions. The group agreed on guidelines for the formula used to calculate a family's ability to pay for college, resulting in more aid for more needy students. (EV)

Using data from the Social Security Administration's "1973 Survey of Student Beneficiaries, this paper shows that the Social Security Student Benefit Program (terminated in 1982) positively influenced recipients' selection of quality private college programs. The program also affected parents' contributions and recipients' on campus…

Colleges charge different prices to insure that able students can have access to an excellent education, regardless of their families' incomes. Price discrimination, charging two different customers two different prices for exactly the same item only because the people differ in ability to pay, is discussed. (MLW)

Trends over the 1967-1977 period are described, based on four surveys of randomly selected students who received nonrepayable financial aid from the state of Illinois. Data for public and private institutions are compared, and a comparison is offered of what parents could theoretically provide and what they actually did provide. (LBH)