The Impact of Transferring and Time-to-Graduation on Student Debt

This paper tests for the impact of two primary variables on the amount of student-debt load upon graduation: how long it has taken to graduate and whether a student has transferred from another school. We focus on the undergraduates who graduated from the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) between the 2000 and 2010 academic years. Our results show that the length of time it takes a student to graduate and transferring from another school both significantly increase the student's total college debt. Most students who transfer to UNI come from a community college. Thus, community colleges may not provide the financial benefits students expect.