Borrowing Constraints, College Enrollment, and Delayed Entry

In this article, I propose and estimate a dynamic model of education, borrowing, and work decisions of high school graduates. I examine the effect of relaxing borrowing constraints on educational attainment by simulating increases in the amount students are permitted to borrow from government-sponsored loan programs. My results indicate that borrowing constraints have a small impact on attainment: the removal of education-related borrowing constraints raises bachelor''s degree completion by 2.4 percentage points. Tuition subsidies are necessary to obtain larger increases: I find that higher subsidies for average-ability students are the most cost effective targeted tuition subsidies.