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The Impact of Income-Driven Repayment on Student Borrower Outcomes

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  • Daniel Herbst

Abstract

In the United States, most student loans follow a fixed payment schedule that falls early in borrowers' careers. This structure provides no insurance against earnings risk and may increase student loan defaults. Income-driven repayment (IDR) plans are designed to help distressed student borrowers by lowering their monthly payments to a share of income. Using random variation in a loan servicer's automatic dialing system, I find that IDR reduces delinquencies by 22 percentage points and decreases outstanding balances within eight months of take-up. I find suggestive long-run impacts on borrower credit scores, mortgage-holding rates, and other measures of financial health.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Herbst, 2023. "The Impact of Income-Driven Repayment on Student Borrower Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 1-25, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:1-25
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20200362
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ege Aksu & Sidhya Balakrishnan & Eric Bettinger & Jonathan S. Hartley & Michael S. Kofoed & Dubravka Ritter & Douglas A. Webber, 2024. "Navigating Higher Education Insurance: An Experimental Study on Demand and Adverse Selection," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-024, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Mallick Hossain & Igor Livshits & Collin Wardius, 2023. "Not Cashing In on Cashing Out: An Analysis of Low Cash-Out Refinance Rates," Working Papers 23-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    3. Tomás Monarrez & Lesley J. Turner, 2024. "The Effect of Student Loan Payment Burdens on Borrower Outcomes," Working Papers 24-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

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