Student Loan Debt

Although substantial attention has been given to federal strategies for improving college access, too little attention has been given to the impact of state finance strategies on academic preparation and access for prepared students. This report provides the following: (1) a ...

This paper investigates the effects of college tuition on student debt and human capital accumulation. We exploit data from a random sample of undergraduate students in the United States and implement a research design that instruments for tuition with relatively large changes to the tuition of students who enrolled at the same school in different cohorts. We find that $10,000 in higher tuition causally reduces the probability of graduating with a graduate degree by 6.2 percentage points and increases student debt by $2,961. Higher tuition also reduces the probability of obtaining an undergraduate degree among poorer, credit-constrained students. Thus, the relatively large increases in the price of education in the United States in the past decade can affect the accumulation of human capital.

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world's leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success -including the SAT ® and the Advanced Placement Program ® . The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools. For further information, visit www.collegeboard.org. The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center was established to help transform education in America. Guided by the College Board's principles of excellence and equity in education, we work to ensure that students from all backgrounds have the opportunity to succeed in college and beyond. We make critical connections between policy, research and real-world practice to develop innovative solutions to the most pressing challenges in education today. See the Trends in Higher Education website at trends.collegeboard.org for more data.

The mass-scale expansion of student loan schemes in Turkey over the last two decades has been accomplished by a governance technique which the article defines as authoritarian debtfarism. By restructuring the Credit and Dormitories Institution (KYK) as subordinated to the executive and insulated from democratic intervention, the authoritarian neoliberal state in Turkey has sought to fulfil its new economic function, i.e. enabling the societal reproduction of the youth by increasing their financial dependency on credit money. The state-led student loan expansion in Turkey emerged in a tuition-free higher education setting without a sophisticated financial infrastructure and in an economic environment marked with perpetual graduate unemployment as well as inflationary pressures on repayment amounts. Based on a detailed interrogation of the official documents and indepth interviews with defaulters, this article argues that authoritarian debtfarism has imposed a rigid market discipline over the university youth by using non-transparency and arbitrariness as its governance mechanisms. Consequently, future labour of the graduates is put on hold through a long-term debt relation, compelling them to integrate into labour market precariously as a new segment of the relative surplus population.

Post-secondary education has increased in importance for economic prosperity and in cost, which has led to rising student debt in many nations. Researchers have lagged in determining how student debt affects new post-secondary graduates and, in particular, how it affects the labour market transitions of new university graduates? This dissertation explore this topic using nationally representative data on 2010 Canadian graduates. The effects of student debt on labour market transitions and outcomes are tested in three empirical studies. In Chapter 2, high levels of student debt are found to be associated with graduates reporting that they could not wait for the job they wanted, that they were actively looking for a different job despite currently being employed, and, for first-generation students only, that they were willing to move cities if it improved their job prospects. In Chapter 3, I find that highly indebted graduates are more likely to take a temporary first job and to have had more employers since graduation. I also find that highly indebted first-generation graduates have fewer job benefits and lower estimated incomes both two and three years after graduation. Not surprisingly given the aforementioned adverse effects of high student debt found for firstgeneration graduates, in Chapter 4 I also find that they report lower satisfaction levels. Specifically, compared to all other graduates, highly indebted first-generation graduates report lower job and life satisfaction, and are significantly less likely to say they would do the same education if they could choose again. iii Taken together, these findings have implications for higher education policy and the ability of university to function as a great equalizer. The findings are alarming given that upwards of 60% of students rely primarily on debt to fund their higher education. They suggest that student debt creates desperation in the job searches of new university graduates, which leads to greater job precarity, reduced job quality, and lower job and life satisfaction. Overall, this research casts doubt on the effectiveness of using student loans as s primary means of providing access to higher education.

Over the past three decades, student debt has surged in most English-speaking countries. Despite this trend, enrollment at universities has steadily risen, which testifies to the enduring appeal that higher education still exerts on middle-class individuals and families. Nevertheless, the policies responsible for this growing indebtedness have also stirred up their share of controversy. In an attempt to make sense of these debates, this article focuses mainly on the English and American cases to demonstrate how moral arguments have been put forth both in favor of and against using credit to finance education. Because it shows the ambivalent and unstable nature of the normative principles underpinning debt relations, the concept of moral economy is particularly well suited to discuss this phenomenon. On one hand, it explains how certain ethical expectations seemingly justify the need to incur debt for educational pursuits. On the other hand, it also shows why the perceived legitimacy of student debt eventually comes to be challenged. At its core lies an undecidable choice between antinomic values, as the decision to study on credit involves both a striving for personal autonomy and subjecting oneself to an exploitative relation of dependence. Recognizing this fundamental ambivalence, the article develops a 'pharmacological approach' to address the issue of student debt, aiming to better grasp the social and political tensions surrounding higher education in neoliberal societies.

This case study examines the integral role that slavery played in shaping the economic foundation of the United States, particularly through industries such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco. It explores how enslaved labor not only fueled the Southern economy but also contributed to the growth of the industrial revolution in the U.S. and Europe. The study delves into the immense wealth generated by slavery, which extended beyond plantation owners to include financial institutions, corporations, and universities. It highlights the role of banks and insurance companies that profited from slavery and the long-term economic consequences for Black Americans, particularly in terms of generational wealth and systemic inequality. The case study also investigates how modern corporations and universities are addressing their historical ties to slavery, and the ongoing economic disparities that continue to affect Black communities today. By understanding the economic impact of slavery, this study emphasizes the importance of reparative actions to address the legacy of economic exploitation and work toward a more equitable future.

Through an experimental design with two treatment groups and a control group, this research highlights the significant positive effects of financial education on reducing debt stress and promoting informed borrowing decisions. The study also uncovers gender differences, with female students showing more negative attitudes toward debt. This study sheds light on the crucial role of financial education in shaping future graduate students' financial choices.

In 2020–2021, 94% of undergraduates in England took out government-backed loans to fund their higher education. The growing and widespread use of student loans in England, mounting student debt, and governments’ increasing dependence on tuition fees underwritten by loans to finance public higher education raise important questions which this paper seeks to address. Specifically, the paper asks how do graduates respond to student loan debt and what does this tells us about the nature of the relationship between the graduate debtor and the state lender? We also question the usefulness of symbolic violence as a sociological lens to better understand graduates’ different patterns of responses and reactions to student loan debt and their relationship with the state lender. Our analysis draws on 98 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with English graduates between 2020 and 2021. We conclude that a more comprehensive explanation requires an exploration of both symbolic violence and s...

The availability heuristic is a cognitive bias that affects various aspects of decision-making, including financial decisions. Based on a randomized controlled experiment, this study assesses the effectiveness of a debiasing treatment designed to prevent the effect of the availability heuristic in student loan decision-making. Experimental subjects were explained that there is a bias that may affect the decision of whether or not to pursue a master's degree and take out a graduate loan to finance it, and they were recommended to base their decision on reliable and verified sources of information as well as expert advice. This specific debiasing strategy is tested empirically. Specifically, this study shows positive causal effects of the debiasing intervention on two indices of student loan decision-making, which were constructed as summary indicators of student loan debt attitude, the perception that significant referents approve the student loan indebtedness, financial self-efficacy in student loan decision-making, and graduate loan borrowing intention. The article highlights the need for higher education institutions seeking to make financial education effective to be concerned with reporting on (and raising awareness of) psychological factors that are present in making financial decisions as well.

2021-2024 - Over the past three years, the United States has witnessed a significant policy failure and rise in interest rates, moving from 3% to around 8% on average for a home loan. This dramatic increase has had profound implications for 43 million working class Americans who collectively hold $2 trillion or more in adjustable debt. As a result, many individuals have suffered a substantial increase in their debt burden, particularly in the areas of auto loans, student loans, adjustable home loans, and credit card debt.

Student finance in UK higher education (HE) has been radically reformed over the past twenty years and the changes in student finance policies have been the focus for a growing body of education research (see for example, Bowl and Hughes, 2014; Bachan, 2014; Wakeling and Jefferies, 2013; Wilkins et al., 2012; Dearden et al., 2011; Moore et al., 2011; McCaig, 2010; Callender and Jackson, 2008). The majority of these existing studies, however, focus on the impact of differing tuition fee levels on students’ enrolment behaviour and the beginning of students’ HE careers. There is little research that has investigated how the most recent increase in tuition fees and changes to student loans, under the 2012 student finance system, have affected the views of graduands (university students who are about to graduate) and their approaches toward their graduate futures. This scoping study has been developed to start to address this gap in knowledge and understanding. In 2014, prior to the SRHE...

Poverty is a reality for many who obtain a degree of higher education and enter the workforce immediately after graduation. Funding an education for many may lead to student loan debt that is often virtually impossible to repay. This often leads many to believe that the debt incurred from obtaining a degree of higher education may not be worth the gain. The purpose of this paper is explore several articles that report on higher education as it relates to poverty, student loan debt, and salary pay scales for degrees and professional trade certifications. While investigating those related themes, this paper will analyze and explore different educational routes that lead to more positive outcomes of self-sustainability and success. The desire to identifying these routes is to help decrease or even eliminate the chances of living in poverty by following a route that is more in demand and offers a higher salary pay scale. This paper will look at two different routes (higher education and/or professional certifications) that have a greater chance of ensuring a lifetime of self-sustainability and success. This paper will compare and contrast student loan debt and costs associated with obtaining a professional certification.

Une différence de nature et non de modalités. La santé et l'éducation ne sont pas des marchandises Le gouvernement Charest continue le mouvement néolibéral avec des promesses de réingénierie, qui ne sont que futures coupes dans les services publics.

Une différence de nature et non de modalités. La santé et l'éducation ne sont pas des marchandises Le gouvernement Charest continue le mouvement néolibéral avec des promesses de réingénierie, qui ne sont que futures coupes dans les services publics.

It is clear that colleges and universities are closing at unprecedented and alarming rates because they fail to change how they operate or look at different educational models, as well as because they do not understand how the educational landscape is rapidly changing. Artificial intelligence will continue to play a major role in art and design education and in the profession, and whether we like it or not, it will put an end to existing careers.

Colleges and Universities are closing at unprecedented and alarming rates because they fail to change how they operate or look at different educational models. Tuition costs will continue to increase without changing the way education is delivered, and the burden of debt is placed on the shoulders of students and their parents. This is unacceptable and the continued closures will be inevitable.

Poverty is a reality for many who obtain a degree of higher education and enter the workforce immediately after graduation. Funding an education for many may lead to student loan debt that is often virtually impossible to repay. This often leads many to believe that the debt incurred
from obtaining a degree of higher education may not be worth the gain. The purpose of this paper is explore several articles that report on higher education as it relates to poverty, student loan debt, and salary pay scales for degrees and professional trade certifications. While investigating those related themes, this paper will analyze and explore different educational routes that lead to more positive outcomes of self-sustainability and success. The desire to
identifying these routes is to help decrease or even eliminate the chances of living in poverty by following a route that is more in demand and offers a higher salary pay scale. This paper will look at two different routes (higher education and/or professional certifications) that have a greater chance of ensuring a lifetime of self-sustainability and success. This paper will compare and contrast student loan debt and costs associated with obtaining a professional certification.

This study aims to collect and analyze articles related to the impacts of student loans in realizing community empowerment. The background of this study is higher education costs cannot be afforded by the majority community. Although many governments have launched student loan programs, the debate over the failure of student loan programs in developing countries has not been resolved. The method used in this study is a literature review by collecting various sources of articles related to the issues discussed. Based on the articles collected, there are many problems such as irrelevant student loan policies, challenges in their application system, loans that could not be repaid that eventually burdened the community. The role of the government, the trust of banks, and the commitment of the community are factors that determine the success rate of achieving this student loan.

This research examines psychological debt stress and changes in household debt holdings for consumers during the Great Recession using data from a monthly national U.S. household survey covering the period 2006 through 2012. Debt stress measures in the population rose by over 50% at the bottom of the recession. Determining relative stress for eight different types of household debt, we find that noncollateralized debts are more stressful than collateralized debt and that during the recession the composition of debt shifted away from collateralized debt and toward noncollateralized. Our empirical results show that women and Hispanics experienced higher measured levels of stress.

Africa faces a number of obstacles when it comes to the quality of life. In Malawi, more than two-thirds of the population lives in extreme poverty, almost all of whom rely on small-scale farming for their livelihoods. Despite efforts by both the government and religious and nonreligious organizations to address the issue, poverty is pervasive in Malawi. This article is guided by the question "What should be done to alleviate poverty in Malawi? Historically, the Church has taken over helping the poor and caring for widows, the destitute, and orphans. On the other hand, the law of jubilee in Leviticus 25 shows that the year of jubilee was a levelling of real assets that occurred every fifty years. This practice mitigated economic inequality making it possible for families not to live in the circle of poverty for generations. This article provides a response by analysing the literature on poverty and relating it to the jubilee principles of the Old Testament in order to propose possible methods for enhancing poverty alleviation in Malawi.

This paper examines the link between parental income during adolescent years and higher education choices of the offspring at age 18. This study is the first to use a recent longitudinal data set from New Zealand (Christchurch health and Development Surveys, CHDS), in the higher education context. The paper examines the impact of family income and other resources throughout adolescent years on later decisions to participate in higher education and the choice of type of tertiary education at age 18. A binary choice model of participation in education, and a multinomial choice model of the broader set of choices faced at age 18, of employment, university, or polytechnic participation are estimated. Among the features of the study are that it incorporates a number of variables, from birth to age 18, which allow us to control further than most earlier studies for ability heterogeneity, academic performance in secondary school, in addition to parental resources (e.g., childhood IQ, nationally comparable high school academic performance, peer effects, family size and family financial information over time). The results highlight useful features of intergenerational participation in higher education, and the effect of parental income on university education, in particular.

More than low default rates, lenders are interested in the expected return on their loans. In this paper, we consider a number of other measures of repayment and nonpayment that are likely to be of direct interest to lenders. Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, we document repayment and nonpayment outcomes 10 years after graduation for American students receiving BA/BS degrees in 1993. We estimate differences in these outcomes across individual/family background characteristics, college major, type of institution, the amount borrowed, and post-graduation income. A key contribution is our analysis of the following outcomes in addition to student loan default rates: the fraction of the original undergraduate loan amount repaid as of 2003, nonpayment rates (including deferment and forbearance as well as default), and the fraction of original undergraduate loan amounts on which borrowers defaulted or are currently not repaying.

Using the 2015 National Financial Capability Study dataset, this study examined the association between race/ethnicity and the use of alternative financial services (AFS) with the moderating role of financial knowledge. Results showed that blacks were more likely to use payday loans, pawnshops and rent-to-own stores than whites. Further, Hispanics were more likely to use payday loans and pawnshops, while Asians/others were more likely to use payday loans compared to whites. The level of financial knowledge influenced different types of AFS use among racial/ethnic groups in a different way with a stronger moderating effect of financial knowledge on blacks and Hispanics than for whites. This study supports the important role of financial knowledge, especially for minority groups that need further attention for researchers.

Student debt burdens are second only to mortgages in the United States' debt portfolio. With nearly 43 million people repaying trillions of dollars of student debt, it is no surprise that calls for student debt cancellation have grown amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has only exacerbated already existing economic crises in the US. And yet, meaningful action to address student debt has largely been absent from recent legislation meant to help Americans overcome the residual impacts, including the financial burdens, of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we argue the absence of student debt relief is consonant with what we articulate as the topologies of student debt in the US, which we use to contextualize the student debt crisis. We provide two case studies-on the relationship between environmental legislation and student debt, and on the uneven ruralities of student debt-that give insight into the socioecological dimensions of student debt's topologies. We end this article by inviting others to join us as we develop more geographical evidence to support ongoing activism for student debt cancellation.

This study aims to understand the role of financial aid in college success of two-year beginning nontraditional students. By applying discrete time event history models with propensity score covariate adjustment to a nationally representative sample from BPS: 04/09, this study answers research questions centering around the effects of Pell Grants, subsidized student loans and unsubsidized student loans on six-year college outcomes of nontraditional students (i.e. degree attainment, system departure, and continuous enrollment without a degree). The results of this study suggest that these nontraditional students were most likely to drop out in the third college year and that all three types of financial aid appeared effective for reducing dropout risks, but not for encouraging timely degree completion. These findings have significant implications for policy and practice including the necessity for considering the complexity of nontraditional student pathways, backgrounds and unique needs when designing and implementing financial aid policy. The findings also contribute to discussions on ways to fund nontraditional students and provide recommendations for institutions serving large populations of nontraditional students to promote persistence to graduation.

As the nation slowly emerges from the Great Recession, the patterns of student aid are returning to the paths they were on before the economy crashed. The federal government, which dramatically stepped up its subsidies to students in 2009-10 and 2010-11, continues to play an expanded role, but not a growing role. Students continue to borrow at levels that are high by historical standards, but that represent a retreat from the soaring debt levels of a few years ago. New data allow a clear focus on the characteristics of students who are most at risk from debt. As Trends in Student Aid 2015 documents, those who do not graduate are particularly vulnerable. Older, independent students, those who take longer to earn their degrees, African-American students, and those who attend for-profit institutions accumulate more debt than others.

The sources of the grant aid supporting students have changed over time. In 2006-07, 43% of all grant aid came from the colleges and universities in which students enrolled and 28% came from the federal government. With the sharp increase in federal grants during the Great Recession, the federal share peaked at 44% in 2010-11, and the institutional share fell to 35%. But since then, institutional grant aid has increased rapidly, as both enrollment and federal grant aid have declined. In 2016-17, institutions provided 47% of all grant aid to postsecondary students. The impact of this $58.7 billion tuition discount is best understood in the context of the increases in published prices reported in Trends in College Pricing 2017. Trends in Student Aid 2017 reveals a continuing decline in annual education borrowing, which fell (in inflation-adjusted dollars) in 2016-17 for the sixth consecutive year. Federal education loans per FTE undergraduate student followed the same pattern, but the average amount borrowed by graduate students increased for the second year in a row-to $17,710, almost four times as high as the $4,620 in federal loans per undergraduate student.

In the literacy theory class I teach, the central touch point for the undergraduate students (many of whom are first generation, "non-traditional," ethnic minorities themselves) has proved to be the James Gee-Lisa Delpit debate about the conflicts between home and academic discourses. While my students argue persuasively for siding with Delpit in this debate, testifying to their own abilities to code-switch, for instance, the essays in the quirky collection Identity Papers: Literacy and Power in Higher Education are unified by a Gee-ian assumption that acculturation into academic discourse (which is, overall, characterized as a homogenous, stable category) demands a complete and painful alienation from home discourses. The work of the collection as a whole, then, is to critique academic discourse and the academic cultures they construct from diverse perspectives. Bronwyn T. Williams has gathered thirteen essays which together act like a prism, bending in different and often-unexpected paths the discussions about the asymmetrical power relations embedded in academic discourse. The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 offers four essays tackling what Williams calls "Institutions and Struggles for Identities." Part 2, also containing four essays, appears under the heading "Identity in the Composition Classroom." Part 3, "Identity Outside the Institutional Walls," offers three essays and Min-Zhan Lu's conclusion-essay that traces concerns about materiality and the body through the collection. As the organizational headings suggest, the collection is highly focused on the "institutionality" of composition and the teaching of an academic discourse which, according to Williams, forces students and teacher to adopt "literacy identities" that "can often run counter to our other identities outside the classroom, leaving us feeling isolated and powerless" (1). The project of the collection is both to identify the definitions of academic literacy-and the pedagogies perpetuating these definitions-that create this isolation and powerlessness. As antidote to this poisonous academic literacy identity, Williams offers the essays to "illustrate how writing helps [the authors] and their students compose alternative identities that may allow the connection of professional identities with internal desires and sense of self" (2). He directly appeals to graduate student readers, urging them to use the collection as a key for unlocking the unspoken about professional identities so that they can knowingly accommodate or resist them. The three essays I most enjoyed in the collection include James T.

The world's leading research center on student access and success in higher education, the Pullias Center for Higher Education advances innovative, scalable solutions to improve college outcomes for underserved students and to enhance the performance of postsecondary institutions. The Pullias Center is located within the USC Rossier School of Education, one of the world's premier centers for graduate study in urban education. Since 1995, the mission of the Pullias Center for Higher Education is to bring a multidisciplinary perspective to complex social, political, and economic issues in higher education. Our work is devoted to the key issues of college access, retention, and accountability for underserved students-and the effectiveness of the colleges and universities that serve them. Both directly

The payday lending industry has been characterized as predatory, which has led to tougher government interventions. However, research on how stricter consumer protection regulations affect actual vulnerable consumers' lived experiences remains seriously underdeveloped. Following in-depth interviews with financially excluded and therefore vulnerable payday loan consumers, this study finds that increased payday loan industry regulations are perceived by consumers as either empowering, disempowering, or simultaneously (dis)empowering. Accordingly, practical implications are developed to help public policy makers navigate vulnerable consumers' ambivalent relationship with consumer protection regulations.

I summarize the current regulatory decisions aimed at combating the debt load of the population in Russia. Further, I show that the level of delinquency of the population on loans is growing despite the regulatory measures taken. In my opinion, the basis of regulatory policy should move from de facto pushing personal bankruptcies to preventing them. I put forward a hypothesis and statistically prove the expediency of quantitative restrictions on one borrower. It is necessary to introduce reports to the credit bureaus of some types of overdue debts, which are not actually reported now. It is also necessary to change the order of debt repayment established by law, allowing the principal and current interest to be paid first, which will prevent the expansion of the debt.

Despite concerted efforts to increase participation in advanced placement (AP) and dual credit (DC) programs, their efficacy remains unexplored. Drawing upon St. John's model as the conceptual framework, this study employed a discrete-time event history analysis to examine the interplay between forms of financial aid and persistence toward degree completion for students participating in DC and AP programs and enrolling in a large, multicampus, Midwestern, U.S. University. Firsttime, first-year baccalaureate degree-seeking students who began studies in Fall 2012 were tracked for 4 years. The findings suggest that many factors are significantly related to college success, including student demographics such as race (especially Latino identity), first-generation status, housing status, socioeconomic status, and dependency status; high school performance, AP/DC participation, and SAT or ACT scores; and financial aid, such as Pell and federal grant aid and institutional grant programs. Results suggest that receiving Pell and federal grant aid and institutional grant-in-aid consistently and significantly attenuated the risks of student departure. In relation to prematriculation college-level credits, AP participants were more likely

The development of financial transactions being done through mobile phones, such as transfer of money, borrowing, raising of funds, payment of bills, and assets management, are types of financial innovations in the twenty-first century and are done using high-tech electronic devices. Digital debt financing, which involves using a mobile phone to borrow funds and repay it digitally, is one of the major modern financial technology innovations of our times (Björkegren & Grissen, 2018). Since the digital debt financing process is instant, remote, and automated, it makes the borrowing process different and more popular than all the other conventional loan processes, particularly for the youth population (Mazer & Rowan, 2016). The introduction of Mpesa in 2007, a mobile money platform in Kenya, was followed by an explosion and growth of other financial service providers, such as Tala, Opesa, KCB-mpesa, Fuliza, Equitel, the Branch, M-Coop Cash, and M-Akiba (Varga, 2017). These financial technology companies have been the key initiators of digital debt financing technology applications (Apps) in the country. The names of these companies pop up on internet-facilitated mobile phones, targeting mostly the youths, like college students, who are the majority of the tech-savvy populace in Kenya. Therefore, according to Malala (2018), the application of mobile phones for debt financing has been advantageous to the Kenyan population, particularly the youth, in areas such as the availability of credit, reduced transaction costs of borrowing, and convenience. The use of mobile phones in Kenya is very popular among the youth, as about 72% of college students use internet-enabled smartphones, which gives them access to those who provide debt financing through mobile phones (Njagi & Silas, 2016). According to Totolo (2018), mobile phone debt financing is above 90% among all phone users in Kenya, irrespective of the reason for borrowing. In addition, Malala (2018) reported that by 2017, at least three-quarters of the youth who owned mobile phones in Kenya had accessed and utilized formally acquired debt financing, including mobile phone loans. Financial freedom through mobile phone debt financing is essential for empowering the youths by enabling them to engage in small entrepreneurship ventures and even support their education programs (Kaffenberger, 2018). Hence, the study attempted to determine the motivators of this kind of debt financing among college students in Kenya. 2. Literature Review The study was guided by the united theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) under the perspective of the use of mobile phone platforms to access debt finance. According to Dwivedi, Rana, Jeyaraj, Clement, and Williams (2019), the UTAUT theory is widely applied by researchers to demonstrate the use and acceptance of information technology in improving social and economic activities within the society. In the discussion of findings of the original initiator of the UTAUT theory, there are three direct causes of intention to apply a technological advancement; these include: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence, and two direct causes of application behavior, intention, and facilitating conditions (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). Venkatesh et al. (2003) also noted that the significant regulating variables of the model include experience, gender, voluntariness, and age. Therefore the study used the suggested variable of UTAUT model in developing the applied independent variables, questionnaire constructs, and the target groups in the sample.

This research examines psychological debt stress and changes in household debt holdings for consumers during the Great Recession using data from a monthly national U.S. household survey covering the period 2006 through 2012. Debt stress measures in the population rose by over 50% at the bottom of the recession. Determining relative stress for eight different types of household debt, we find that noncollateralized debts are more stressful than collateralized debt and that during the recession the composition of debt shifted away from collateralized debt and toward noncollateralized. Our empirical results show that women and Hispanics experienced higher measured levels of stress.

Despite substantial increases in the enrollment and college completion rates among African American and Hispanic students in the last three decades (Snyder, Dillow, & Hoffman, 2007, Table 267), a college completion gap persists between minority students and White and Asian/Pacific Islander students (ACE, 2008; Carey, 2004). A number of factors help determine college persistence and attainment (Tinto, 1993) but two factors strongly associated with baccalaureate attainment are (a) access to financial aid (Dynarski, 2002; Heller & Nelson Laird, 2000; Turner, 2004), and (b) access to elite education, which we define as access to prestigious and highly ranked private institutions as well as public flagships (

Reverse logistics is a process that involves the implementation, control, and planning of cost-effective flow of raw materials, finished goods, and in-process inventory. It is the flow from the point of consumption to the point of origin to ensure effective disposal and recapturing of value. Reverse logistics is a new practice in developing countries such as Kenya, and as such, there is need to fully understand what it entails. Based on this, the main purpose of the study is to assess the influence of reverse logistics practices on solid waste disposal management in Kisumu Town, Kenya. The study was guided by three main objectives which are to examine the influence of backward flow of materials on solid waste disposal management; to determine the influence of producers' involvement on solid waste disposal management; and to establish value recovery opportunities in solid waste disposal management. The study utilized three theories which are Closed-loop supply chain theory (main theory), third-party logistics theory, and resource advantage theory. The study used descriptive survey design. Descriptive survey design was used. The target population of the study was 140 respondents consisting of representatives of supermarkets, garbage collecting organizations, employees of the county government, producers, and small-scale hotels. A stratified random sampling of 104 respondents was surveyed. Data was collected using questionnaires and interview guides. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, which includes measures of variability and central tendency. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis framework. Reliability was ensured using the Cronbach Alpha that had a value of 0.7. The validity of the instruments was determined by the supervisors of the institution. The findings of the study indicated that there has been a limited adoption of backward flow of materials as a reverse logistics practice, that producers are not fully involved in the implementation and practice of solid waste disposal management and that solid waste disposal management practices in Kisumu Town have not been fully used to exploit value recovery opportunities. The conclusion of the study was that there is need to increase the utilization of reverse logistics practices in Kisumu Town. Some of the recommendations that are provided in the study include the need to implement reverse logistics practices to reduce expenditures, increase profitability, improve efficiency, and promote environmental sustainability, there is need for collaboration of major stakeholders in solid waste disposal in providing training on waste handling and there is need in reducing garbage collection fees to ensure that it is affordable.

For-profit providers have become an important fixture of U.S. higher education markets. Students who attend for-profit institutions take on more educational debt and are more likely to default on their student loans than those attending similarly selective public schools. Because for-profits tend to serve students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, it is important to isolate the causal effect of for-profit enrollment on student debt and repayment outcomes as well as the educational and labor market mechanisms that drive any such effects. We approach this problem using a novel instrument combined with comprehensive institution-level data on student debt, default, educational attainment, and labor market outcomes. Our instrument leverages the interaction between changes in the demand for college due to labor demand shocks and the baseline supply of for-profit schools. We compare how enrollment and subsequent outcomes change across areas that experience similar labor demand shocks but that have different latent supply of for-profit institutions. The first-stage estimates show that students are much more likely to enroll in a forprofit institution for a given labor demand change when there is a higher supply of such schools in the base period. Among four-year students, for-profit enrollment leads to more loans, higher loan amounts, an increased likelihood of borrowing, and an increased risk of default. Two-year for-profit students also take out more loans, originate more student debt, and have higher default rates. We present evidence that these debt and default outcomes are driven by higher for-profit tuition and a negative effect of for-profit enrollment on labor market outcomes. Our results point to high costs and low returns to for-profit enrollment that generate worse student debt and repayment outcomes. These findings have important implications for public investments in higher education as well as how students make postsecondary choices.