Credit Supply and the Rise in College Tuition: Evidence from the Expansion in Federal Student Aid Programs

摘要

We study the link between the student credit expansion of the past 15 years and the contemporaneous rise in college tuition. To disentangle simultaneity issues, we analyze the effects of increases in federal student loan caps using detailed student-level financial data. We find a pass-through effect on tuition of changes in subsidized loan maximums of about 60 cents on the dollar and of about 20 cents on the dollar for unsubsidized federal loans. The effect is most pronounced for more expensive degrees and degrees offered by for-profit and 2-year institutions.