A newer version of this project is available. See below for other available versions.

How Low Income Expectations Affect Student Loan Repayment Plan Choice: Survey Evidence from College Seniors

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Joshua Brownstein, Michigan State University; Scott Imberman, Michigan State University

Version: View help for Version V8

Version Title: View help for Version Title Updated paper based on feedback from journal referees.

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Balence Tests.do	text/plain	1.1 KB	12/04/2023 04:17:PM
Difference in Difference Regressions.do	text/plain	4.6 KB	11/20/2023 04:00:PM
Final Survey Data after Create or Rename Variables.dta	application/x-stata-dta	1.9 MB	11/20/2023 04:07:PM
Final_Survey_Data.csv	text/csv	620 KB	11/06/2023 04:14:PM
Income_Expectations_Student_Loan_Repayment_3_2024.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	97.2 KB	03/03/2024 06:53:AM
Income_Expectations_Student_Loan_Repayment_3_2024.pdf.pdf	application/pdf	464.4 KB	03/03/2024 06:35:AM
Mean and Variance IDR Payment.do	text/plain	2.5 KB	11/26/2023 05:38:PM
Non Difference in Difference Regressions.do	text/plain	2.2 KB	11/19/2023 04:32:PM
Set Up File.do	text/plain	37.1 KB	11/19/2023 05:08:PM
Survey Screenshots.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	1.1 MB	04/19/2023 01:02:PM

Project Citation:

Brownstein, Joshua, and Imberman, Scott. How Low Income Expectations Affect Student Loan Repayment Plan Choice: Survey Evidence from College Seniors. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-03-03. https://doi.org/10.3886/E186081V8

Project Description

Summary: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2049358. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Income-driven repayment plans lower required payments for student loan borrowers when their income decreases. This helps to reduce student loan defaults. Despite universal availability, only a minority of student loan borrowers in the U.S. are in an income-driven repayment plan. I test whether a student’s choice of repayment plan is related to their expectations of earning a low income by fielding a web survey where students are randomly shown one of two types of information about post-college incomes. I use which treatment a student sees as an instrument for their low-income expectations. While the estimates for the full sample are insignificant, I find that increasing low-income expectation decreases the probability a student prefers an income-driven repayment plan. The more tailored income information significantly increases students’ low-income expectations but causes insignificant declines in choosing the income-driven repayment plan. I conclude that increasing students’ low-income expectations is unlikely to increase take up of income-driven repayment plans.

Funding Sources: National Science Foundation (2049358)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Student Loan Repayment; Income Expectations; College Students

Collection Date(s): 10/19/2021 – 10/27/2021 (A link to the web survey was first emailed to students on 2021-10-19. I closed the survey on 2021-10-27)

Universe: Undergraduate Seniors at Michigan State University

Data Type(s): survey data

Methodology

Response Rate: 22.6% (1,581 completed surveys out of 7,000 students emailed the survey link)

Related Publications

Download this project

Published Versions

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

Report a Problem

Found a serious problem with the data, such as disclosure risk or copyrighted content? Let us know.

This material is distributed exactly as it arrived from the data depositor. ICPSR has not checked or processed this material. Users should consult the investigator(s) if further information is desired.