Special Topics

Cohort Default Rate Resources

The Department of Education released new data which show 13.8 percent of student loan borrowers defaulted on their loans within three years of entering repayment, and our resource page on the federal student loan cohort default rate (CDR) and the new "three-year CDRs" provides background and useful links about cohort default rates for reporters, policymakers, and the general public. 

Community College Publications and Resources

The Institute's community college work seeks to maximize the effectiveness of financial aid and student services at two-year institutions, with a particular focus on the 2.5 million students at California's community colleges.

Net Price Calculator Publications and Resources  

Since October 29, 2011, almost all U.S. colleges and universities are required to have "net price calculators" on their websites. These online tools can make it much easier for prospective students and their families to look past often scary "sticker prices" and start figuring out which colleges they might be able to afford.

Pell Grant Publications and Resources

Federal Pell grants help more than nine million low- and moderate-income Americans attend and complete college and are the cornerstone of our nation's student aid system. The vast majority of Pell recipients have family incomes under $40,000, and they already have to borrow more than others to complete college.

Private Student Loan Publications and Resources

Private student loans are one of the riskiest ways to pay for college. They have much more in common with credit cards than they do with federal student loans. Private loans typically have variable interest rates that are higher for those who can least afford them - as high as 18% in 2008 - and they lack the important consumer protections and repayment options of federal loans. The Project on Student Debt is working to improve consumer protections for private loan borrowers and ensure that students and families have the information they need to make safe and smart borrowing decisions.

Featured Work

Poll: Young Adults Say Higher Education is More Important but Less Affordable

A national bi-partisan survey of adults ages 18-34 reveals that young adults today believe a college education is more important than it was for their parents' generation, that it has become less affordable in the last five years, and that students are leaving school with too much debt.

Student Debt and the Class of 2010

College seniors who graduated in 2010 carried an average of $25,250 in student loan debt and also faced the highest unemployment levels for new college graduates in recent history at 9.1 percent.

Critical Choices

Our new report looks at promising and problematic practices of financial aid offices when students apply for private student loans.

Still Denied

Our new issue brief Still Denied: How Community Colleges Shortchange Students by Not Offering Federal Loans found that more than one million community college students were denied access federal student loans, the safest and most affordable way to borrow for college.

Adding It All Up

By the end of October, U.S. colleges must meet a federal requirement to create online "net price calculators." We took an early look at how colleges are approaching this requirement and found mixed results for how easy the calculators were to find, use, and understand. 

After the FAFSA

This report sheds light on what happens to federal financial aid applicants after they submit the FAFSA. Using 2007-08 financial aid data from 13 California community colleges, the Institute found that one in three likely Pell-eligible applicants did not receive a Pell Grant.