Students increasingly borrow money to attend postsecondary education. Yet, little attention in the literature has been paid to the repayment of student loans, aside from failure indicators like default. This study examines a nationally representative sample of bachelor's degree recipients and the time it takes to reach different repayment thresholds on federal student loans. Motivated by a new federal emphasis on student loan repayment rates, we use event history analysis to show that bachelor's degree recipients have little trouble paying down $1 of their principal balance upon entering repayment. After just six months, 65 percent of this student borrower population had already done so, often paying back much more than $1. However, borrowers enrolled in federal Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans took much longer to pay down any loan balance, and many never did in the time we observed their repayment. The consistently negative relationship we find between IDR and paying down loan balances highlights a tension between repayment rate policies and the push for IDR reform of the U.S. repayment system. We discuss the policy implications of these findings and offer an alternative repayment metric to accommodate the contrasting goals and structures of standard repayment schedules versus income-contingent repayment policies.

中文翻译：

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改天再换一个美元度量标准？学生贷款还款的事件历史分析

学生越来越多地借钱参加高等教育。然而，除了违约等失败指标外，文献中对偿还学生贷款的关注很少。这项研究检查了全国具有代表性的学士学位获得者的样本，以及达到联邦学生贷款的不同还款门槛所需的时间。受新的联邦政府对学生贷款还款率的重视的推动，我们使用事件历史分析来显示，获得学士学位的人在输入还款额时可以轻松偿还其本金中的1美元。仅仅六个月后，这个学生借款人中就有65％这样做了，通常还款额超过1美元。然而，参加联邦收入驱动的还款（IDR）计划的借款人需要更长的时间来偿还任何贷款余额，而且在我们观察到他们的还款时间中，许多借款人从未这样做。我们发现IDR与还贷余额之间始终存在负相关关系，这凸显了还款率政策与美国IDR改革推动的还款政策之间的紧张关系。我们讨论了这些发现的政策含义，并提供了替代的还款指标，以适应标准还款时间表与收入或有条件的还款政策的对比目标和结构。