The primary purpose of "National CrossTalk" is to stimulate informed discussion and debate of higher education issues. This issue contains the following articles: (1) The Credit Crisis Goes to College: Upheaval in the Student-Loan Business Leaves Students and Parents Scrambling (Susan C. Thomson); (2) The Engaged University: Northern…

Within the past 2 decades, the education services industry has been characterized as going through a period of high tuition with an increased reliance on the use of loan financing. This study examines the impact of this high-tuition, high-loan approach, especially as it relates to the role of socioeconomic status on educational choice within…

Chile's higher education system stands out as being one of the most privatized and open to the market in the world. Recently, the Chilean Congress passed Law #20.027 of 2005, which provides the legal framework for the creation of a student loan system guaranteed both by the State and by higher education institutions (HEIs), financed by the private…

This report presents the findings of a quantitative survey research program that Gallup, Inc. conducted on behalf of Sallie Mae. The overall objective of the study was to determine how American families are paying for higher education. The study also measures public attitudes toward college and various topics related to funding college. To achieve…

This strategic plan lays out Federal Student Aid's (FSA's) long-term strategy to deliver on its mission of helping Americans to pay for higher education. The plan is composed of five strategic goals. FSA will (1) provide superior service and information to students and borrowers; (2) work to ensure that all participants in the system of…

Government student loan schemes typically have implicit interest rate subsidies which, while these are a cost to taxpayers, they have the benefit of diminishing repayment burdens for graduates. Our goal is to illustrate the extent of both interest rate subsidies and repayment burdens with respect to Thailand's Student Loans Fund (SLF), using…

The House of Representatives will likely vote this week on a proposal to halve the 6.8 percent interest rate on subsidized student loans as part of the new congressional majority's 100-Hour agenda. This document presents six problems with halving student loan interest rates and argues that, rather than providing billions in new federal subsidies,…

Someday students seeking a college loan might go to a Web site, fill out a brief questionnaire, and get connected to the lender with the best possible rate. Such a system would bring cheer to students seeking straight answers, lenders seeking fair competition, and colleges seeking relief from investigations led by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo…

This report suggests to congress that they consider clarifying whether Education may regulate the fees charged to borrowers under the Direct Loan Program. It also suggests that FSA collect information from schools that could be used to make improvements to the Direct Loan Program. (Author)

In this report GAO recommends that the Secretary of Education assess the advantages of consolidation loans for borrowers and the government in light of program costs and identify options for reducing federal costs. Options could include targeting the program to borrowers at risk of default and extending existing consolidation alternatives to more…

The purpose of the United States Department of Education's (the Department) Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 "Agency Financial Report" (AFR) is to inform Congress, the President, and the American people on how the Department has used federal resources entrusted to it to promote achievement and preparedness of youth entering a global environment by…

Sallie Mae's study, "How America Saves for College 2009," conducted by Gallup, provides a measure of the commitment parents have to helping their children reach higher education and whether and how they are saving for the investment. Based on a nationally representative survey of parents of children under age 18, the study found that without…

Australia's Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) is an income contingent loan scheme, in which university students pay back part of the costs of their tuition after their post-university income reaches a certain threshold, is an important policy innovation for the financing of higher education. However, its critics claim that HECS increases…

Many students are unaware that they might be eligible for financial aid to attend college or trade school. High school, TRIO, and GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) counselors are an important source of information about financial aid from private, school, state, and federal student aid programs. This…

In this paper, we investigate the responsiveness of the demand for college to changes in student aid arising from a Danish reform. We separately identify the effect of aid from that of other observed and unobserved variables such as parental income. We exploit the combination of a kinked aid scheme and a reform of the student aid scheme to…