Students' access to family help with paying for college tuition and living expenses varies by family resources, structures, and relationships, and can affect later outcomes and the extent to which students rely on various forms of financial aid. This study analyzes an originally collected dataset at two regional public four-year universities in…

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 article examines the relationship between a student's mental wellbeing and their financial circumstances. In England, successive governments have adopted a strategy of shifting the cost of university from the state to the individual as a means of increasing participation in higher education. In recent years, some have attributed the…

Grant aid reduces the financial burden of human capital investment in postsecondary education. Theory suggests grant aid should substitute for other financial resources such as borrowing and labor market participation. Although studies have individually examined the impact of grant aid on hours of paid work and on borrowing for education, students…

Student loans have become a social-financial issue in the United States. This study uses a nationally representative dataset to examine the association between financial socialization and student loan borrowing behavior of individuals after controlling a number of different socio-demographic factors. Results show that the financial burdens of…

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is an important tool to help students find financial assistance. Not only do students fill out the FAFSA to apply for federal aid for post-secondary education, but also to be considered for aid by states, institutions, and private funders. Thus, filling out the FAFSA, specifically, and applying…

Since 2008, Sallie Mae has surveyed American families with an undergraduate student about their attitudes toward college and how they paid for it. For the past ten years, the "How America Pays for College" research has provided insight regarding families' belief in the value of a college education, how they are making college more…

This study of the financial circumstances of students at Australian Universities is being undertaken by the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education (MCSHE) at the University of Melbourne for Universities Australia, which has funded the study. Universities Australia is the peak body for Australia's universities. The purpose of the…

This report presents selected findings from the second follow-up of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). HSLS:09 follows a nationally representative sample of students who were ninth-graders in fall 2009 from the beginning of high school into higher education and the workforce. Key research topics for HSLS:09 include secondary to…

"How America Pays for College", introduced in 2008, is a Sallie Mae national study conducted by Ipsos that annually surveys undergraduate students and parents of undergraduates about how much they pay for college and the resources they use to fund the expense. Now in its tenth year, this study also asks families about their attitudes…

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 designation "low income" is often assigned to students who are Federal Pell Grant eligible; however, family incomes for these recipients range from $0 to as high as $60,000 (Baum & Payea, 2011). Over 93% of all zero expected family contribution (EFC) students have a family income of $30,000 or less and constituted 67.4% of all…

This study analyzed 586 students from nine vocational high schools in three provinces in China. It found a substantial gap between the demand for and the supply of government financial aid. Moreover, correct student aid information and aid application was not equally distributed among various student groups. A financial aid application made a…

Evidence shows that parental financial investments increase college attendance, but we know little about how these investments shape postsecondary achievement. Two theoretical frameworks suggest diametric conclusions. Some studies operate from a more-is-more perspective in which children use calculated parental allocations to make academic…

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,…