World
Millennial Student Debt
The explosion of student loan debt is a defining feature of the contemporary American political economy; for many among the generation of American college-goers who came of age in the lead-up and shadow of the Great Recession, it is a defining feature of their lives. The Millennial Student Debt series, featuring research by the Jain Family Institute, examines the shape and effects of the student debt crisis.
How Schools Lie
The deceptive financial aid system at America's colleges.
No matter how talented, hard working, and committed a student is, if financing falls through, the dream of obtaining higher education can be dashed. But much of the financial data that prospective students receive is misleading. In the cost information…
Hysteresis & Student Debt
How the Great Recession fueled the student debt crisis.
The geographic character of the Great Recession of 2008–2009 is, by this point, well-known. While everywhere in the United States experienced a sharp increase in unemployment, some areas suffered disproportionate exposure to subprime mortgages and the consequent bursting of the…
The Student Debt Crisis is a Crisis of Non-Repayment
Borrowers are increasingly unable to pay down their student loans, leading to mounting balances and an intensifying debt crisis.
Think of the student debt crisis as an overflowing bathtub. On the one hand, too much water is pouring in: more borrowers are taking on more debt. That is thanks to increased demand for higher education in the face of…
Unceasing Debt, Disparate Burdens: Student Debt and Young America
JFI’s interactive map presents the geography of student debt.
Since the Great Recession, outstanding student loan debt in the United States has increased by 122% in 2019 dollars, reaching the staggering sum of $1.66 trillion in June of this year. Student loan debt has grown faster than other debt…
Mapping concentration and prices in the US higher education industry During and after the Great Recession, public funding for higher education was slashed as part of state budget austerity. Staff and programs were cut and tuition rose; in many states,…
Mapping market concentration in the higher education industry In much of the existing higher education literature, “college access” is understood in terms of pre-college educational attainment, social and informational networks, and financial capacity, both for tuition and living expenses. The…