Snapshot · Planet Money
Research consistently shows that when financial aid is capped without replacement grants or scholarships, the most common outcome is students simply stop attending college.
Where this was said
At 25:04 · chapter starts 24:50
The most robust finding in the research literature on financial aid cuts is not that students become savvy consumers shopping for cheaper degrees — it's that they stop going to school entirely [1] — Dominique Baker "When you cap federal student aid without providing equivalent grants or scholarships, the most consistent finding in the research is not th…" 24:50 . Dominique Baker, an associate professor at the University of Delaware, explains this to Cory Turner with emphasis: the number one documented outcome of capping aid without equivalent grant replacement is non-enrollment. This is consistent across the research literature and is likely to apply to grad students as well. Compounding the problem, the private student loan market has atrophied since 2006. When unlimited federal loans became available, students fled private loans en masse, and the private industry shrank accordingly. Lower-income borrowers with limited credit histories may now find the private market nearly inaccessible — leaving them with no backup when federal funding runs short.
When you cap federal student aid without providing equivalent grants or scholarships, the most consistent finding in the research is not that students find cheaper schools — they just stop enrolling. Dominique Baker says this pattern holds across the literature and is likely to apply to grad students too.
When unlimited federal grad loans launched in 2006, students abandoned the private loan market en masse. Now that private industry has shrunk, lower-income borrowers with limited credit histories may find it nearly impossible to get private loans to fill the federal funding gap.
When the Grad PLUS unlimited loan program launched in 2006, students migrated en masse from private loans to federal ones, causing the private student loan market to shrink significantly.
The Trump administration's loan cap strategy is a game of chicken with colleges: lower your prices or watch your enrollment shrink. The problem is that students — not administrators — are the ones forced to make the hard choices while the standoff plays out.
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