Transitioning to higher education opens various possibilities. This qualitative inquiry adds depth to college choice processes by looking into the lives of low-income Chinese students. Semi-structured interview data obtained from 41 college borrowers representing diverse tiers of higher education was described and interpreted using reflexive…

The development of cost-efficient pathways is a topic of increasing political and scholarly interest across many North American jurisdictions. It has been suggested that 'seamless' transfer pathways can provide financial savings to both students and taxpayers. However, such claims are typically based on hypothetical cost calculations, as opposed…

This study examines how students engage in the prosumption (production-consumption) of online lending services in Indonesia and how these services contribute to students falling into the trap of hyper-consumerism. Using multi-sited ethnography, this study explores how Cicil's online lending practices, an online lending platform targeting higher…

In 2020-2021, 94% of undergraduates in England took out government-backed loans to fund their higher education. The growing and widespread use of student loans in England, mounting student debt, and governments' increasing dependence on tuition fees underwritten by loans to finance public higher education raise important questions which this paper…

The valorization of skills in English higher education policy-making is a long-standing refrain, informing both rhetoric and investment from government and shaping university behaviour. Critiques of the 'skills agenda' are equally established, on grounds of its contested evidence base, manner of implementation and even its very definition. This…

Faced with higher education (HE) expansion and limited public funding, governments worldwide use student loans to shift costs onto graduates. Income-contingent loans (ICLs) are considered a potential solution, protecting debtors from excessive loan repayments, financial hardship, and default. Governments adopting ICLs promote them as benign while…

Transfer pathways are commonly associated with cost savings to students within the policy world. However, few have ventured to empirically examine whether traveling transfer pathways result in savings for students. Through this article, we report on analyses of this topic drawing on a custom linkage between Toronto District School Board,…

More students from non-traditional backgrounds will attend university in the future. Universities must have effective Support for Students Policies and should limit instances where students fail with little to no personal benefit, such as 'zero-fails' (failed units with a cumulative mark of zero). The aim of this action research study was to…

The unwillingness of the Somali community to finance higher education has largely gone unnoticed within the academic literature and government policy documents. This study explores the role of religion and the influence of Shari'ah scholars on the use of interest-bearing student loans within the Somali community. In the absence of any theoretical…

Governments around the world use grant and loan programs to ease the financial constraints that contribute to socioeconomic gaps in college completion. A growing body of research assesses the impact of grants; less is known about how loan programs affect persistence and degree completion. We use detailed administrative data from Chile to provide…

We study supply-side responses to student financial aid, focusing on how tuition responds to the targeting of aid. Our framework identifies two mechanisms: a direct effect, which raises tuition, and a composition effect, which can lower tuition if aid targets price-sensitive students. Leveraging a reform in Brazil's student loan program, we…

Purpose: To identify the financial stress and associate factors of tertiary level student. Design/methodology/approach: To identify the financial stress and associate factors, a structured questionnaire was developed to collect data from 571 students of different universities of Bangladesh through Google form. Chi square and Cramer's "V"…

This Policy Note explains the changes in the student accommodation market that have led to higher rents. Following the recent announcement that the maximum maintenance loan in England will increase by only 2.5% in 2024/25 and the fact that rents have been rising faster than maintenance support, this report outlines a possible a new approach,…

A government-established student loans institute known as Instituto Colombiano de Credito Educativo y Estudios Tecnicos en el Exterior (ICETEX) has been instrumental in improving access to higher education in Colombia. This article uses the capability approach to analyze the ways in which ICETEX has contributed to loan recipients' well-being and…

In the last three years there have been big changes in rent levels and the supply of student accommodation, driven and shaped by global and national economic turbulence. High inflation, high energy costs, high building costs and high interest rates have combined to produce unprecedented rises in rent. Because of this rapid change, Unipol have run…