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In Short The price of a public college education has increased rapidly, in large part because of inadequate public funding. Promising free tuition would be a giveaway to the relatively wealthy. Str...

The idea that online learning might revolutionize higher education, lowering the cost of high-quality learning opportunities for students with limited access to traditional higher education, follows similar hopes for earlier technologies, including radio and television. If such a revolution is to come, it is still far from a reality. Strong evidence indicates that students with weak academic backgrounds and other risk factors struggle most in fully online courses, creating larger socioeconomic gaps in outcomes than those in traditional classroom environments. The central problem appears to be the lack of adequate personal interaction between students and instructors, as well as among students. Hybrid learning models do not exhibit the same problems and there is potential for online learning to develop strategies for overcoming these difficulties. Meanwhile, narrowing gaps in educational opportunities and outcomes requires considerable skilled human interaction.

Fifty years ago, just over half of U.S. high school graduates went immediately to college. More than 85 percent of these students attended four-year colleges and universities, as there were about h...

Media anecdotes about individuals with student debt are unrepresentative and misleading. The general perception of a student debt “crisis” misses the reality that most education borrowing improves people’s lives by increasing educational opportunities. Higher-income people carry more student debt than lower-income people. However, specific groups of people and specific types of debt cause serious difficulties. Finding solutions to the very real problems requires pinpointing the problems, targeting the solutions, and recognizing the responsibilities of both borrowers and taxpayers.

The general perception of a student debt “crisis” misses the reality that most education borrowing improves people’s lives by increasing educational opportunities. Higher income people carry more student debt than lower income people. However, specific groups of people and specific types of debt cause serious difficulties. Default rates are disturbingly high, but the biggest problems are among students who do not complete their programs and among those who attended for-profit institutions. Finding solutions to the very real problems requires pinpointing the problems, targeting the solutions, and recognizing the responsibilities of both borrowers and taxpayers. The most important strategy for ameliorating student debt problems is preventing people from borrowing for programs they are unlikely to complete and institutions that won’t serve them well. Major steps for dealing with existing debt include an improved income-driven payment system that appropriately supports borrowers while expecting most t...

The general notion of a student debt “crisis” in the United States is rooted in misperceptions. The problems lie largely with students who leave school without a credential, with those who attend for-profit institutions, and with older adults returning to school—not with young, four-year college graduates.

Thirteen percent of adults in the United States ages 25 and older hold advanced degrees — master’s, doctoral or professional degrees. The first brief in this series reported that bachelor’s degree recipients from low-income households are less likely than other graduates to pursue advanced degrees and are less likely than students from more affluent backgrounds to complete them. High tuition prices and living expenses may provide one explanation for these unequal outcomes. This brief examines how students finance their graduate and professional education. It summarizes the sources of funds used to cover the tuition and fees universities charge, as well as living expenses. Institutions set a “cost of attendance” (COA) for students, estimating the average budget for one academic year (fall through spring). COA includes tuition and fees, books and supplies, room and board, transportation, and other living expenses, and it establishes the maximum amount students can borrow in federal student loans to attend a particular school. These official budgets serve as the foundation for the discussion that follows about how graduate and professional degree students pay for their education. It is critical to understand that COA is subjective. Since most graduate students do not live in campus housing, actual living expenses depend on local prices for food and housing, as well as the lifestyle choices students make. As the data below reveal, the budgets institutions set for graduate and professional students are frequently quite generous relative to budgets set for undergraduate students and living standards set by the federal government. Many students use earnings from employment and federal loans to fund their graduate and professional education. But financing patterns differ a great deal across and within types of programs. This brief explores these patterns by describing average budgets for graduate and professional degree students and the funding sources used to cover these budgets.

Although concerns about student debt most often focus on undergraduate students, borrowing rates and average debt are higher among graduate and professional degree students than undergraduates. Their high levels of debt contribute significantly to aggregate student debt. Policy solutions focusing only on undergraduates cannot appropriately address the issues of student debt in the United States. Moreover, examination of borrowing patterns among students pursuing advanced degrees can help identify barriers to enrollment in these programs as well as potential repayment problems. There is wide variation in how students cover tuition and living expenses while they pursue graduate and professional degrees. As reported in the third brief in this series, The Price of Graduate and Professional School: How Much Students Pay, most research doctoral degree students attending public and private nonprofit schools benefit from generous institutional fellowships and assistant ships that cover a significant portion of their expenses. But master’s degree students in all sectors cover most of their expenses with earnings from employment and federal student loans. Borrowing is particularly important for professional degree students, most of whom have neither earnings from employment during the academic year nor grants and fellowships to cover tuition and living expenses while they are enrolled. This brief reviews borrowing patterns and trends among advanced degree students, disaggregating by demographic characteristics as well as type of program and institutional sector.

Many people enroll in graduate and professional degree programs to develop expertise in a particular field, advance their careers and increase their earnings. Advanced degrees open doors to expanded career opportunities and offer monetary and nonmonetary benefits to individuals and society. Although on average, advanced degrees are valuable in the labor market, students pursuing a graduate or professional degree face considerable uncertainty. Research doctoral and professional degree recipients have lower unemployment rates and higher average earnings than those with master’s degrees, and there is wide variation in outcomes, even among students who complete the same type of degree. As noted in the first brief in this series, Who Goes to Graduate School and Who Succeeds?, about a quarter of students who enroll in graduate and professional degree programs leave school without earning a degree. Among those who complete their studies, outcomes vary based on type of degree, field of study and occupation, as well as race, ethnicity and gender. This brief explores employment and earnings outcomes among advanced degree recipients. Examining these outcomes across degree, occupational and demographic categories paints a nuanced picture of the payoffs of graduate and professional education. This information is critical for prospective students and others seeking to assess the value of these degree programs.

Differences in data sources, definitions, and concepts affect the answers to key attainment and completion questions: how students with different characteristics fare, how well individual instituti...

During the Great Recession, those with college degrees fared much better than those without degrees, but a number of college graduates struggled to find satisfactory employment, leading many to graduate study. The option of seeking an advanced degree has gained momentum in recent decades, and now some observers call the master’s degree the “new bachelor’s degree.”This brief is the first in a series addressing questions about enrollment and success in graduate school, funding of graduate students, the conceptual differences between undergraduate and graduate students, and the data available to address these questions.As participation in graduate programs rises, it is critical to ask who is enrolling, which programs they are choosing, whether they complete their degrees, and how their investment in education beyond the bachelor’s degree pays off. This brief reviews changes over time in educational attainment levels and the earnings premiums for advanced degrees, and then explores differences in enrollment and completion patterns across demographic groups.

Like tuition and fees for undergraduate students, prices for graduate and professional study have risen rapidly over time. But average published prices tell us little about how much students actually pay. Despite high sticker prices, many students enrolled in research doctoral degree programs pay no tuition and fees because institutional grant aid, fellowships and tuition waivers cover these charges. Master’s degree students and those in professional practice degree programs are much less likely to receive this assistance. In 2011–12, one-third of full-time graduate and professional degree students received grant aid from their institutions. This included 71 percent of research doctoral students, compared with 38 percent of master’s and 42 percent of professional degree students. After an overview of how graduate school prices have changed over time, this brief provides detailed information on published and net prices for students continuing their education beyond a bachelor’s degree.

Disturbing anecdotes that are real but not representative can capture a lot of attention in the media and cascade into widely accepted panics that are out of proportion to reality. Student debt is just one example of this phenomenon. Some proposed policy responses, such as forgiving and eliminating all student debt, would be very poor strategies even if they were feasible. Increased educational attainment has significant benefits both for society as a whole and for individuals. Although there is significant variation among people with the same level of education, people with college degrees generally earn much more than others. They can reasonably use a portion of their higher incomes to repay debt—as long as there is protection for people who run into unexpected difficulties.

Many assertions about the impact of student debt are grounded in weak evidence and problematic reasoning. It is difficult to sort out cause and effect, as opposed to similar trends, in much of the analysis of the relationship between student debt and asset formation, entrepreneurial activity, and home purchases. Few discussions of student debt clarify the alternatives—if people didn’t borrow for college would they manage to get the same education? If students didn’t borrow, who would pay and what would be the impact of higher taxes or reduced spending in other areas? Moreover, surveys of what people believe to be true are too often confused with evidence about what is actually true.

The main purpose of federal student loans is to solve cash flow problems, not to pay part of the cost of education. Grant aid is the best way to provide subsidies to disadvantaged students. But some borrowers need help paying back their loans because their education does not pay off as well as anticipated. Measures of the amounts individual students borrow are generally more meaningful than the total amount of debt outstanding and there is quite a bit of variation in the borrowing patterns of different students. For example, older students and graduate students tend to carry more debt than others. Default rates are disturbingly high, but the biggest problems are among students who do not complete their programs and among those who attended for-profit institutions.

The most important strategy for ameliorating student debt problems is preventing people from borrowing for programs they are unlikely to complete and institutions that won’t serve them well. There should also be stricter limits on borrowing for graduate students, parents, and some undergraduates. Major steps for dealing with existing debt include an improved income-driven payment system that appropriately supports borrowers while expecting most to repay their debts in full and improving the structures surrounding the repayment and collection processes—but not forgiving all or most debt. Other promising policy changes include easing the restrictions on discharging student debt in bankruptcy, eliminating the privileged category of private student loans, and making it easier for students to borrow less than the maximum allowed.