Higher Education Finance
The American higher education system is afflicted by a crisis of quality, affordability, and access that belies its role in building an equitable and just society. This has found most pernicious expression in the mounting problem of student debt, a $1.7 trillion burden affecting over 42 million people. This burden often now extends to students’ families, and is disproportionately shouldered by historically marginalized groups. Absent any meaningful constraint on college costs, the student debt trap risks putting higher education – and its promise of economic mobility – out of reach for ordinary and low-income Americans.
JFI approaches the problem of higher education finance in two principal ways. First, we analyze interlinked, nationally-representative datasets to offer a detailed picture of student debt, examining race, ethnicity and class intersections, labor markets, and the impacts of institution type and geographic concentration. With this analysis, we identify high-impact policy interventions to address the existing debt burden and the broader affordability crisis. Second, we design, consult on, and produce research on income-contingent financing, an alternative to traditional student loans under which students pledge a percent of their income over a limited period. Designed with adequate safeguards, income-contingent financing reduces students’ risk by ensuring their payments never exceed their ability to pay.
PARTNER WITH US
We welcome academic and philanthropic partners interested in using our student debt data for collaborative or independent research. We have collaborated with educational institutions, scholarship funds (notably, the Student Freedom Initiative), workforce development agencies, and a range of investors on income contingent finance pilots, and we welcome further inquiries. We also provide analytics, evaluation, and design consulting for existing providers in order to ensure equitable, transparent and accountable financing.
PARTNERS
Featured Partners
Higher Education Finance Contributors
Eduard Nilaj
Data Science Research Associate
Ege Aksu
Fellow
Francis Tseng
Lead Independent Researcher
Laura Beamer
Lead Researcher
Marshall Steinbaum
Senior Fellow
Roberta Costa
Research Manager
Sérgio Pinto
Fellow
Sidhya Balakrishnan
Director of Research
Yunjie Xie
Fellow
Related Publication Series
Millennial Student Debt
Recent Updates
Dubravka Ritter
Dubravka Ritter of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia presented two papers at a JFI Research Session this November.
Marshall Steinbaum
Steinbaum presented a paper on student debt
ISAs in the Financial Times
JFI quoted in “American Education and the Rise of Philanthropic Capital”
Income Share Agreements at Purdue
A video from PBS Newshour explains how ISAs work.
ISAs in ImpactAlpha
An article on JFI’s partners, Better Future Forward
New Research: Borrowing Arrangements and Returns to Education
A JFI paper on higher ed finance and ISAs
Report: DREAMers’ perceptions of ISAs
Results from focus groups on higher education financing