Paying for undergraduate business education: Recent trends in tuition, income, institution choice, and debt

ABSTRACT

In 1999–2000, business students borrowed substantially less to pay for their educations than nonbusiness students. By 2011–2012 this difference had disappeared. The authors describe changes in tuition, grants, incomes, and choice of institution type (public, private not-for-profit, or private for-profit) to help explain this observation. They find that an important determinant of whether a student will take debt and how much that student will take is the type of institution the student attended. The authors also find that business students were less likely to borrow than liberal arts and humanities majors in the earlier period, but not in the later period.

KEYWORDS:

• For-profit
• higher education
• NPSAS
• student loans