Student Loans: Liquidity Constraint and Higher Education in South Africa
Open accessAbstract
Empirical evidence that access to higher education is constrained by credit availability is limited and usually indirect. This paper provides direct evidence by comparing university enrollment rates of potential South African students, depending on whether or not they get a loan to cover their university fees, in a context where such fees are high. We use matched individual data from a credit institution (Eduloan) and from the Department of Education. Using a regression-discontinuity design based on the fact that loans are granted according to a credit score threshold, we can estimate the causal impact of loan obtainment. We find that the credit constraint is substantial, as it reduces the enrollment rate into higher education by more than 20 percentage points in a population of student loan applicants.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In South Africa, access to loans increases college enrollment by 20 percentage points (from a baseline enrollment rate of about 50 percent).
“Examining college applicants just above and below a credit score cutoff for loan access in South Africa, Gurgand, Lorenceau, and Mélonio (2011) find a large, 20 percentage point increase in college enrollment for students with access to loans (from a baseline enrollment rate of about 50 percent).”
From College Costs, Financial Aid, and Student Decisions (2022) · cites this paper as Gurgand, Lorenceau, and Mélonio (2011)
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 17
- Acemoglu D. & Pischke J-S. (2001), "Changes in the wage structure, fam- ily income, and children's education", European Economic Review, Vol. 45, pp. 890-904.
- Branson N., Leibbrandt M. and Zuze T. L., (2009), "What are the returns of tertiary education and who benefits?" in Responding to the Educational Needs of Post-school Youth, N. Cloete (Ed.), Centre for Higher Education Transformation.
- Cameron S.V. & Heckman J.J. (2001), "The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Black, Hispanic, and White Males", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 109, No. 3, pp. 455-499.
- Cameron S.V. & Taber C. (2004), "Estimation of Educational Borrowing Constraints Using Returns to Schooling", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 112, No. 1, pp. 132-182.
- Card D. (2001), "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems", Econometrica, Vol. 69, No. 5 (Sep., 2001), pp. 1127-1160.
- Carneiro P. & Heckman J.J. (2002), "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling", The Economic Journal, Vol. 112, No. 482, pp. 705-734.
- Hahn J., Todd P. & Van der Klaauw, (2001), "Identification and Estima- tion of Treatment Effects with a Regression Discontinuity Design", Econo- metrica, Vol. 69, No. 1, pp. 201-210.
- Imbens G. & Angrist J. (1994),"Identification and estimation of local av- erage treatment effects", Econometrica, vol. 62, pp. 467-475.
- Imbens G., & Lemieux T. (2007), "Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice", Journal of Econometrics, Vol. 142, No. 2, pp. 807-828.
- Keane P.K. & Wolpin K.I. (2001), "The Effect of Parental Transfers and Borrowing Constraints on Educational Attainment", International Eco- nomic Review, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 1051-1103.
- Keswell M. and Poswell L. (2004), "Returns to Education in South Africa: A retrospective Sensitivity Analysis of The Available Evidence", South African Journal of Economics, Vol. 72, No. 4, pp. 834-860.
- Lang K. and Ruud P. (1986), "Returns to Schooling, Implicit Discount Rates and Black-White Wage Differentials", The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 68, No. 1, pp. 41-47.
- Lee D. & Lemieux T. (2010), "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Eco- nomics", Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 281-355.
- Lochner L. & Monge-Naranjo A. (2011), "The Nature of Credit Con- straints and Human Capital", American Economic Review, forthcoming.
- Maurin E. (2002), "The Impact of Parental Income on Early Schooling Transitions : A Re-examination Using Data over Three Generations", Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 85, No 3, pp. 301-332.
- Statistics South Africa (2006), "Quarterly Employment Statistics, June 2006, September 2006, December 2006".
- Stinebrickner R. & Stinebrickner T. (2008), "The Effect of Credit Con- straints on the College Drop-Out Decision: A Direct Approach Using a New Panel Study", The American Economic Review, Vol. 98, No. 5, pp. 2163-2184.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
College Costs, Financial Aid, and Student Decisions
Dynarski, S., Page, L., & Scott-Clayton, J. (2022) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w30275 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gurgand, M., Lorenceau, A. J. S., & Mélonio, T.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Paris School of Economics (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Gurgand, Marc
- Venue
- SSRN Electronic Journal
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011
- ISSN
- 1556-5068 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2156891093
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 1
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Agence Française de Développement
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Keywords
- student loans, credit constraints, higher education access, college enrollment, credit scores, access to credit, student fees, South Africa
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
