A college degree is often viewed as a key step toward better employment and higher earnings. Many community college students, however, never graduate and cannot reap the financial benefits associated with a college degree. Although existing research suggests that financial aid interventions can modestly improve students' short-term academic…

The British system of student loans has a zero real rate of interest, less than it costs the government to borrow the money. This paper discusses the problems that arise from interest subsidies in the UK system of student loans; systems in other countries, for example Australia and New Zealand, face similar problems. The topic appears to be narrow…

A study compared college student income and cost of living (housing, food, and some additional expenses) in relation to income at Leeds Polytechnic and five other geographically diverse British institutions. The study was undertaken to assess the need for and impact of a new national student loan program. (MSE)

The cost of student loan defaults is a growing problem. At the beginning of this century, defaulted student loans exceed $25 billion (Student Aid News, 2001). In addition to the costs borne by the taxpayer as the federal government purchases defaulted accounts, there are costs incurred by schools, lenders, loan servicers, and guaranty agencies for…

The Federal Direct Student Loan Program is not an improvement over the Federal Family Education Loan Program and is doomed to fail as did a similar large-scale federal program 33 years ago. The program will not save money; the government is ill-equipped to manage it; it has been pushed past its demand; and schools do not want the change. (MSE)

This study compared the relative effectiveness of grants and loans in helping low-income students stay in college until graduation. The study analyzed two student-level databases. One database contained data on a national sample of high school seniors who began full-time study at four-year colleges and traced them through college. The other…