Student Loans: A Slippery Lifeline

Student Loans Repayment and Recovery: International Comparisons

Student Loans Repayment and Recovery: International Comparisons Student loans schemes are in operation in more than seventy countries around the world. Most loans schemes benefit from sizeable built-in government subsidies and, in addition, are subject to repayment default and administrative costs that are not passed on to student borrowers. We probe two issues in this paper, for 44 loans schem...

Student Loans in a Tiebout Model of Higher Education

A model is presented where universities competitively supply education to mobile students. Students are subject to a liquidity constraint so that tuition must be paid out of pre-university income. It is shown that student loans provided by home jurisdictions will ensure an efficient quality of higher education if loans do not contain any subsidy. If there is income-related debt relief, however,...

Risky College Investment under Alternative Bankruptcy Regimes for Student Loans

I consider the implications of alternative bankruptcy regimes for student loans in a heterogeneous model of life-cycle earnings and risky human capital accumulation. Findings suggest that the ability level of high-school graduates drives the decision to enroll in college, while the initial human capital level is crucial for completing college. Also, the correlation between parental wealth and a...

The Unsupportable Cost of Variable Pricing of Student Loans

Insuring Student Loans Against the Risk of College Failure

Participants in student loan programs must repay loans in full regardless of whether they complete college. But many students who take out a loan do not earn a degree (the dropout rate among college students is between 33 to 50 percent). We examine whether insurance against college-failure risk can be offered, taking into account moral hazard and adverse selection. To do so, we develop a model ...