United States Student Financial Aid: Student Loan and Default

Prior to presenting the existing research on student loan default in the United States, the paper

explores the student financial aids and the reasons why student loan is essential for students here

in the United States. This paper explores research from several published, peer-reviewed articles

that report on research conducted by researchers and practitioners on student loan debt and

default in the United States. The articles, however, vary in their period and the explanation of

student loan in the United States. The most recent article by Pew Research Center (Cilluffo,

2017) states that four out of ten adults under age 30 have student loan debt. Other articles also

discuss the consequences of defaulted student loan borrowers. This paper finally examines that

there are more female students than male students apply for student financial aids. Majority of

the borrowers have the Stafford Combined loan and borrow the amount between 10 thousand and

25 thousand dollars in 2015. The result of the study using data mining implies that the United

States student loan default trend has been increasing since 2003 and also the 90+ day delinquent

trend is not decreasing.

Keywords: United States Student Loan, student debt, financial aid, student loan default