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Insuring college failure risk

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Abstract

Participants in student loan programs must repay loans in full regardless of whether they complete college. But many students who take out a loan do not earn a degree (the dropout rate among college students is between 33 to 50 percent). The authors examine whether insurance against college-failure risk can be offered, taking into account moral hazard and adverse selection. To do so, they developed a model that accounts for college enrollment, dropout, and completion rates among new high school graduates in the US and use that model to study the feasibility and optimality of offering insurance against college-failure risk. The authors find that optimal insurance raises the enrollment rate by 3.5 percent, the fraction acquiring a degree by 3.8 percent and welfare by 2.7 percent. These effects are more pronounced for students with low scholastic ability (the ones with high failure probability).

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  • Satyajit Chatterjee & Felicia Ionescu, 2010. "Insuring college failure risk," Working Papers 10-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:10-1
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    1. Kevin M. Murphy & Finis Welch, 1992. "The Structure of Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 285-326.
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    3. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner, 2008. "The Effect of Credit Constraints on the College Drop-Out Decision: A Direct Approach Using a New Panel Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2163-2184, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lance Lochner & Alexander Monge-Naranjo, 2012. "Credit Constraints in Education," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 225-256, July.
    2. Lance J. Lochner & Alexander Monge-Naranjo, 2011. "The Nature of Credit Constraints and Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2487-2529, October.
    3. Felicia Ionescu, 2011. "Risky Human Capital and Alternative Bankruptcy Regimes for Student Loans," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(2), pages 153-206.
    4. Ionescu Felicia A, 2008. "Consolidation of Student Loan Repayments and Default Incentives," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-37, August.
    5. Felicia Ionescu, 2009. "The Federal Student Loan Program: Quantitative Implications for College Enrollment and Default Rates," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 205-231, January.
    6. Ionescu, Felicia & Simpson, Nicole, 2010. "Credit Scores and College Investment," Working Papers 2010-07, Department of Economics, Colgate University.
    7. Ionescu, Felicia, 2009. "Risky College Investment under Alternative Bankruptcy Regimes for Student Loans," Working Papers 2009-01, Department of Economics, Colgate University.

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    Keywords

    Education; Higher - Economic aspects; Insurance;
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