ACCI Conference 2017

Higher education financing decisions have attracted an unprecedented amount of attention from popular media, consumers, policymakers, and administrators. The growth in borrowing behavior, both in frequency and intensity, has led to concerns that institutions are ripping students off and that students are making poor choices. The objective of this study is to trace attitudes about student debt over time and to determine the causal effect of loan attitudes on higher education attainment. Using the Survey of Consumer Finances and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we (1) explore how student loan debt attitudes have changed over time in both the general population and within subgroups and (2) estimate the impact of debt attitudes on higher education attainment.