skip to content
July 13, 2011

Critical Choices
How Colleges Can Help Students and Families Make Better Decisions about Private Loans
The Project on Student Debt

Our new report Critical Choices: How Colleges Can Help Students and Families Make Better Decisions about Private Loans documents promising practices that a variety of financial aid offices are using to help prospective borrowers avoid unnecessarily risky and costly debt. It also identifies some problematic practices that bypass key opportunities to inform students’ and parents’ borrowing decisions.

  Read the report

Related items:

Read the press release
Private Loans: Facts and Trends

Featured Reports

 

Cal GrantsStrengthening
Cal Grants to Better Serve Today's Students

TICAS and more than a dozen other student, civil rights, business, and college access organizations have come together to release a new analysis of how Cal Grants could better serve low-income college students.

RADD

Aligning the Means and the Ends

This white paper calls for major changes to federal student aid, including Pell Grants, student loans, and tax benefits, with the goals of increasing college affordability and completion.

SDR2010

Student Debt and the Class of 2011

Two-thirds of college seniors who graduated in 2011 had student loan debt, with an average of $26,600 per borrower. Meanwhile, unemployment for young college graduates remained high at 8.8 percent in 2011.

Adding It All Up 2012: Are College Net Price Calculators Easy to Find, Use, and Compare?

This report examines the state of net price calculators nearly a year after almost all U.S. colleges were required to post them on their websites. Our in-depth look at 50 randomly selected colleges' calculators found that many are difficult for prospective college students and their families to find, use, and compare.  

MLWMaking Loans Work

Our new report takes a closer look at how some forward-thinking community colleges in California are promoting responsible use of federal student loans - ideas that can be adopted by colleges across the country.

Critical Choices

Our new report looks at promising and problematic practices of financial aid offices when students apply for private student loans.

After the FAFSA

This report sheds light on what happens to federal financial aid applicants after they submit the FAFSA. Using 2007-08 financial aid data from 13 California community colleges, the Institute found that one in three likely Pell-eligible applicants did not receive a Pell Grant.