Many health care professionals are burdened with substantial educational loans when they complete their formal schooling. Physicians and other health care professionals providing care in communities that have shortages of primary-care practitioners, however, are eligible for government loan...

In response to President Obama's 2014 directive the DOE has proposed a new student loan repayment option, labeled the Repay As You Earn Plan (“REPAYE Plan”). The DOE on July 9, 2015 requested comments on their proposed REPAYE Plan rules, and the Plan will probably be open for enrollment in...

The Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan decreases the burden of student loan debt for borrowers with high levels of debt or relatively low incomes. For borrowers with high debt or low income, student loan debt payments are based on income instead of the amount of debt and the interest rate. The...

More than low default rates, lenders are interested in the expected return on their loans. In this paper, we consider a number of other measures of repayment and nonpayment that are likely to be of direct interest to lenders. Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, we...

Income-driven student loan repayment (IDR) plans provide protection against unaffordable loan payments and default by linking loan payments to borrowers' earnings. Despite the advantages IDR would offer to many borrowers, take-up remains low. We investigate how take-up is affected by the framing...

This study investigates the welfare implications of allowing workers the option to dedicate their employer-sponsored retirement benefits to the repayment of their student debt. Using a partial equilibrium model, I find that this policy allows for increased consumption while young, while reducing...