Student Loans

The federal government isn't a private bank, but it has reasons for charging interest on student loans.

A growing endowment generates wealth. A small part of that wealth is invested to bolster an administration tasked with generating prestige, and, as students rush to take out federal loans, raising tuition and fees.

And that makes it hard for kids to choose the right school.

A new report points to troubling flaws with the Parent PLUS loan program.

Brown hopes to raise $30 million by December in order to eliminate loans starting in the 2018–19 academic year.

The regulations sought to protect student loan borrowers.

James Runcie submitted his resignation following an apparent disagreement with Betsy DeVos over his scheduled testimony on improper aid payments.

Think withholding taxes is an easy fix to America’s mess of a student loan re-payment system? Alex Holt explains why you should probably think again.

Young, broke, and desperate, I worked at the heart of an emerging nationwide scandal in higher education. Here's what I saw.

An early look at a Pacific Standard story that's currently only available to subscribers.

Unlike most of the school-loan borrowers who make it into the news, the most severely delinquent borrowers tend to have low balances and low monthly payments.

For many universities and colleges, both public and private, it’s their most embarrassing secret—paying educated professionals minimum wage salaries with no benefits.

New Department of Education data shows rising default rates on federal loans to parents.

In what’s been criticized as a modern-day version of indentured servitude, a new batch of start-ups are giving investors the opportunity to turn people into profit by buying a piece of their future earnings. Could this be a solution to our student debt problem?

For-profit higher education's failings have the feds exercised anew. If only there was some way to know who might thrive in these institutions....

We celebrate education as the answer to almost all of our economic problems. At the same time, we largely ignore the enormous debt many American students are forced to acquire and the great difficulties they face in landing a job that makes it possible for them to pay it off.

Four destinations across the Web that Pacific Standard staffers find themselves returning to again and again.

A new study from The New America Foundation makes it clear why so many schools have fought efforts for greater transparency when it comes to financial aid.

Wesleyan University wants to graduate some students in just three years, saving them (or their parents) thousands in tuition costs. Is this a brave idea—or a blasphemous one?