Collaborative Research: Student Loans and the Transition to Adulthood

大多数年轻人现在至少上过一些大学，许多人在这个过程中承担了大量的学生债务。现在，超过三分之二的大学毕业生在完成四年制学位后，平均背负着约3万美元的学生债务。最近，一些专家和利益相关者讨论了各种减少或免除学生贷款的计划，一些大学已经开始实施减少低收入学生贷款的计划。这个项目考察了大学生和毕业生的债务经历。它考察了有贷款的学生是如何开始负债的，考察了他们之前与父母、顾问和同龄人的经历。它调查了学生对债务的态度和知识，以及他们在大学毕业后开始偿还债务的经历。该项目还将他们的经历与那些在实施新项目以减少或消除学生债务的大学就读的人的经历进行了比较，将那些有学生贷款债务的人的经历与那些因为这个项目或没有这个项目而避免债务的人的经历进行了比较。该项目的调查结果将为旨在减少学生贷款负债的高等教育政策提供参考，并为关心学生债务对年轻人、其家庭和整个美国社会的影响的家庭和政治领导人提供投入。学生贷款债务对学生、他们的家庭和美国社会都有更广泛的影响。在一项正在进行的纵向混合方法研究的基础上，该项目将包括对两所大学的24名有贷款的大学毕业生进行采访，这些毕业生在2016年毕业前首次接受采访，此后每年都接受采访。该项目将在2020年和2021年对这一群体进行采访。2020年即将毕业的新一批48名大四学生将在一所大学接受面试，该大学实施了一项减少学生贷款的计划，分别在毕业前和毕业后一年半进行面试。正在进行的项目还包括2017年对两所大学的3727名大学生的调查，以及2018年再次调查的173名应届毕业生。这些即将毕业的大四学生将在2020年再次接受调查。2020年，该大学将与学生贷款项目一起进行一项新的调查，2021年秋季，该大学的毕业生将再次接受调查。工具变量回归分析将与访谈数据相结合，分析对学生贷款债务的选择，有债务和没有债务的人的不同教育经历，以及对贷款债务的情绪和知识，这些可能会影响成年后的事件，包括研究生的经历和结果。该项目将帮助确定学生贷款债务对大学毕业后进入青年期的影响，以及学生贷款债务如何在大学毕业生中代表一种新的“阶级鸿沟”，这种鸿沟会根据学生贷款债务状况在以后的人生历程中产生不同的结果。研究结果将为教育、家庭形成和成年过渡的社会学理论提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The majority of young adults now attend at least some college, and many take on substantial student debt in the process. More than two-thirds of college graduates now carry an average of around $30,000 in student debt when they finish their 4-year degrees. Recently, some experts and stakeholders have discussed various plans to reduce or forgive student loans, and some colleges have begun to implement programs to reduce loans for low-income students. This project examines college students’ and graduates’ experiences with debt. It examines how students with loans came to take on debt, examining prior experiences with parents, advisors, and peers. It examines student attitudes towards and knowledge about debt, as well as their experiences after college as they begin to pay off that debt. The project also compares their experiences to those who attended a university that implemented a new program to reduce or eliminate student debt, comparing the experiences of those with student loan debt to those who avoided debt either because of this program or without this program. Findings from the project will inform policies in higher education that aim to reduce student loan indebtedness, and provide input for families and political leaders concerned with the implications of student debt for young adults, their families and for United States society generally. Student loan debt has implications for students, their families and United States society more generally. Building upon an ongoing longitudinal mixed-methods study, this project will involve conducting interviews with 24 college graduates with loans at two universities who were first interviewed right before their graduation in 2016, and have been interviewed yearly since then. The project will interview this cohort in both 2020 and 2021. A new cohort of 48 seniors graduating in 2020 will be interviewed at a university that implemented a program to reduce student loans, with interviews right before and 1.5 years after graduation. The ongoing project also included surveys with 3,727 college students at two universities in 2017, as well as 173 graduating seniors from that survey again in 2018. Those graduating seniors will again be surveyed in 2020. A new survey will be fielded at the university with the student loans program in 2020, with graduates of that university surveyed again in Fall 2021. Instrumental variable regression analyses will be combined with interview data to analyze selection into student loan debt, the different educational experiences of those with and without debt, and sentiments and knowledge about loan debt that may affect events later in young adulthood, including post-graduate experiences and outcomes. This project will help determine the impacts of student loan debt on the transition out of college and into young adulthood, and how student loan debt may represent a new ‘class divide’ among college graduates that produces differential outcomes later in the life course based on student loan debt status. Findings will inform sociological theories of education, family formation, and transition to adulthood.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.