Publication

A new national survey of college and university presidents finds that 86% are concerned about the amount of debt students are taking on to pay for their education, and that they support a range of policy changes to reduce the burdens of student debt.

When student loans are the only way to pay for college, who decides how much debt a degree is worth? Through interviews and a review of available research, this paper explores how debt aversion and conflicting views about the role of student loans affect young people, their families, and those who advise them.

This report examines the process by which non-profit guaranty agencies can be converted to for-profit enterprises, and some of the conflicts of interest and inefficiencies that can result from such a shift.

Testimony of Robert Shireman, the director of the Project on Student Debt, before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee of the United States Senate in April of 2005.

This is a pdf of a powerpoint presentation given at the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute on college access marketing, with specific examples of marketing campaigns from across the country.

The Institute's first major publication, Money For Nothing, brought national attention to the practice of "recycling" student loans with a guaranteed 9.5 percent interest subsidy. Until public attention was focused on this abuse, some lenders were collecting over a billion dollars a year in payments from the U.S. Treasury that have since been deemed inappropriate.