In the early 2000s, a highly selective university introduced a "no-loans" policy under which the loan component of financial aid awards was replaced with grants. We use this natural experiment to identify the causal effect of student debt on employment outcomes. In the standard life-cycle model,...

This paper explores the impact of university funding reform on teaching quality competition. It shows that a graduate tax with differentiated, but state-regulated fees maximises the higher education surplus, whereas student grants as well as pure and income contingent loans do not. Fee autonomy...