In 2014, the government of Colombia launched a unique meanstested and merit-based scholarship program called Ser Pilo Paga. We examine the effects of this scholarship on student performance on the country's university exit exam and other educational outcomes. Exploiting thresholds for...

The investment in education creates present costs but brings benefits in the future such as increased earnings, improved health, economic growth, long life, and better service delivery in the place of work. The student expenses include but are not limited to tuition fees, books, and lodging...

We evaluate the effects of the 2020 student debt moratorium that paused payments for student loan borrowers. Using administrative credit panel data, we show that the payment pause led to a sharp drop in student loan payments and delinquencies for borrowers subject to the debt moratorium, as well...

We evaluate the effects of the 2020 student debt moratorium that paused payments for student loan borrowers. Using administrative credit panel data, we show that the payment pause led to a sharp drop in student loan payments and delinquencies for borrowers subject to the debt moratorium, as well...

International development cooperation has evolved since the 1960s. The effectiveness of aid is still topical, but studies have not paid adequate attention to the relationship between sectoral aid, politics, institutions, and aid effectiveness in fragile states. Using data from 2002 to 2020, this...

How do households adjust savings and consumption in response to liquidity from debt relief? I study this question using policy variation induced by federal student loan forbearance in the 2020 CARES Act and an individual-level panel of daily financial transactions for 315,000 borrowers....

This paper uses new administrative data with detailed borrower information and lengthy repayment histories from the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) to measure rates of return on undergraduate student loans. We document substantial heterogeneity in returns based on information available at...

Growing reliance on student loans and repayment difficulties have raised concerns of a student debt crisis in the United States, but little is known about the effects of student borrowing on human capital and long-run financial well-being. We use variation induced by recent expansions in federal...

We develop a stylized college admission model to analyze the effects of need-blind admission policy which requires admission decisions to be independent of applicants’ financial needs. We show that the need-blind admission policy enhances needy students’ enrollment if financial aid offers...

We quantify the total stock of balances eligible for the 2022 federal student loan forgiveness policy and explore which groups benefit most. Roughly $441 billion in balances are eligible for forgiveness, which would leave almost 40 percent of federal borrowers with no remaining balance. The...

Higher education policy potentially has an important role in improving intergenerational income mobility. We use rich administrative data to estimate a novel two-sided matching model of sorting into field and institution within higher education. We use it to simulate a wide set of policies aimed...

I study the distributional implications of student-loan forgiveness using the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances. Un-targeted loan forgiveness—forgiving all public loans up to a fixed amount for all borrowers—is regressive if measured in dollars but progressive if measured as a percentage of...

The expansion of university enrollment and the implementation of tuition fees have become focal points of discussion in both current educational practices and theories. While increased university enrollment offers more opportunities for higher education, the high cost of tuition fees has pushed...

We evaluate the effects of the 2020 student debt moratorium that paused payments for student loan borrowers. Using administrative credit panel data, we show that the payment pause led to a sharp drop in student loan payments and delinquencies for borrowers subject to the debt moratorium, as well...

I evaluate a financial aid policy which automatically granted 1,800 euros annually to low-income students scoring in the top 5% of high school students and enrolling in higher education. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that it had no significant impact on various higher education...

Policy makers and researchers are actively debating over the consequences of student debt for individuals’ choices and aggregate quantities in the US. Using micro-level data and focusing on entrepreneurial outcomes, I document that having a student loan is associated with a lower likelihood of...

Multiple extensions of the federal student loan forbearance program since March 2020resulted in a temporary payment pause that lasted more than 3 years. We examine theimpact of long-term forbearance on the evolution of borrowing by distressed individuals.We observe substantial increases in...

The initial years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic fallout likely posed particular financial strain on U.S. households with children, who faced income disruptions from widespread jobs and hours cuts in addition to new childcare and instruction demands. One common expense for...

Growing reliance on student loans and repayment difficulties have raised concerns of a student debt crisis in the United States, but little is known about the effects of student borrowing on human capital and long-run financial well-being. We use variation induced by recent expansions in federal...

I study the effects of the Future to Discover Project, a randomized experiment in which Canadian high school students were either invited to participate in career planning workshops or were made eligible for an $8,000 college grant. By matching the experimental data to post-secondary institution...

This paper looks at consumer complaints about student loan lenders and servicers from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) consumer complaint database. Using a novel dataset drawn from 30,678 complaints filed against 212 student loan companies, we analyze consumers’...

Growing reliance on student loans and repayment difficulties have raised concerns of a student debt crisis in the United States. However, little is known about the effects of student borrowing on human capital and long-run financial well-being. We use variation induced by recent expansions in...

Financial aid from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (STBF) provides exceptionally generous support to a college population similar to that served by a host of state aid programs. In conjunction with STBF, we randomly assigned aid awards to thousands of Nebraska high school graduates from...

Borrowing for education has increased rapidly in the past several decades, such that the majority of non-housing debt on US households' balance sheets is now student loan debt. This chapter analyzes the implications of student loan borrowing for later-life economic well-being, with a focus on...

This paper surveys the literature on student lending, emphasizing empirical studies of default, credit outcomes, and earnings. Student loans exist to alleviate credit constraints, and in theory, may have different effects on outcomes through multiple channels. There is significant heterogeneity...

Using data from the 2017 U.S. Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), this study classifies student debt into three categories by beneficiary (self, spouse, and children) and examines the relationship between each category and financial well-being. The results show that the...

When a student receiving Title IV financial aid, such as a Pell Grant, withdraws after attending for 60% or less of an enrollment period, federal aid rules require colleges to return a portion of students’ Title IV aid disbursals to the U.S. Department of Education, in a policy known as...

Many university students depend on employment during their studies. The closing of universities and the loss of many typical student jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic particularly affected their situation. Based on survey data from a major German university, we analyze changes in students'...

I study the effects of the Future to Discover Project, a randomized experiment in which Canadian high school students were either invited to participate in career planning workshops or were made eligible for an $8,000 college grant. By matching the experimental data to post-secondary institution...

Using the W.E. Upjohn Institute's Promise Programs Database - a searchable data set covering about 200 place-based scholarship programs-this paper explores how the design of Promise programs can shape their equity impacts. The authors first examine the landscape of place-based programs to...

Student loan debt in the US exceeds $1.3 trillion, and unlike credit card and medical debt, typically cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. Moreover, this debt has been increasing: the share of borrowers leaving school with more than $50,000 of federal student debt increased from 2 percent in...

We study the impact of financial incentives on higher education decisions and the choice of major. We rely on a reform whereby Israeli kibbutzim shifted from their traditional policy of equal sharing to productivity-based wages. We use for identification the staggered implementation of this...

The impact of policies that increase access to schooling to children in low income countries is mediated by household responses that distribute educational investments across children; however, these household responses are often difficult to cleanly identify. In this paper, I study a UPE reform...