Starting from today, we will post relevant literature on this topic and I strongly encourage people to either post good links on the mainpage or the comment box or send me material and I will post it (attributed or not as you prefer!). Also, if you are a journalist or policy maker and would like questions to be addressed please feel free to get in contact publicly in the comments or privately through email and I will make sure the questions are communicated on this forum (again attributing them or not). I have a very short amount of time for this and will do my best to give a good account of the issues but remember this is a blog not an official publication so I take no responsibility for errors that may creep in.
Below are some links that Colm Harmon sent on that form a good backdrop to this debate.
Nicolas Barr at the LSE has written several articles on options for financing higher education that are available on his page below:
http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/nb/index_own.html#hef
The Higher Education Funding and Reforms project at the LSE is another useful resource. The paper linked below is entitled The Role of Credit Constraints in Educational Choices: Evidence from NCDS and BCS70
http://cee.lse.ac.uk/research/06.asp
Two recent IFS papers examine the issues around student financing. These are hugely valuable contributions outlining the issues involved and essential reading for people who intend writing about this topic in the upcoming weeks.
http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/05ebn13.pdf
http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn45.pdf
Why not start with the Irish numbers?
ReplyDeleteDept. Finance estimates for 2007: http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=5190&CatID=13&StartDate=01+January+2008&m=f
HEA Enrollments:
http://drupal.hea.ie/files/files/file/statistics/2007/FTUGAllField07%20Amended.xls
Best,
Steve
Here's a just-published paper on repayment trends of student loans in the US:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bepress.com/bejm/vol8/iss1/art22/
Abstract:
I study repayment behavior for college graduates who borrow under the U.S. Federal Student Loan Program to finance higher education. I develop a dynamic model with uninsurable shocks to earnings and student loan rates that explains the repayment pattern in U.S. data: college graduates with lower debt will lock-in interest rates, while those with higher debt will switch to an income-contingent plan. Default does not occur among the most financially constrained group of college graduates. I use the model to quantify the effects of a reform introduced in 2006 that eliminates the possibility to lock-in interest rates for student loans. The reform induces a significant increase in default rates, which is largely accounted for by low-income borrowers.