NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
ERIC Number: EJ1168378
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Mar
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0162-3737
EISSN: N/A
Information Use and Attention Deferment in College Student Loan Decisions: Evidence from a Debt Letter Experiment
Darolia, Rajeev; Harper, Casandra
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, v40 n1 p129-150 Mar 2018
A prominent concern is that college students are harming their long-term economic prospects by making student loan decisions without full information about the implications of their choices. We designed an experiment to examine students' responses to a debt letter, an increasingly popular strategy to provide easily accessible information about student loans. The debt letters are modeled after requirements in recent state laws that attempt to encourage students to make informed borrowing decisions. Our results suggest that information alone is not sufficient to systematically change students' borrowing choices. The debt letter led to no change in the amount that students borrow or the likelihood that they will borrow. We supplement results from the experiment with semistructured interviews to examine why the intervention did not change behavior.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Missouri
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: Pell Grant Program
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A