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671 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 8 (2017)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0671 and id is 1 raw text is: Introduction: Connecting Student Loan Research and Federal Policy By NICHOLAS HILLMAN and KATA OROSZ This article introduces this volume, which is dedicated to expanding a theory- and evidence-based understand- ing of student loan problems. The authors review evi- dence to address fundamental questions related to student loan research: who borrows, why, and the con- sequences of debt for specific student populations. The authors outline how the articles collected in the volume address these fundamental questions, and discuss ways in which federal policy-makers may build on the insights that can be gained from this volume as they work on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Keywords: higher education; student loans; student debt; financial aid policy Today, 41.5 million Americans owe more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding federal student loan debt (U.S. Department of Education 2016). This debt has tripled over the past decade, making student loans the second- largest line of consumer credit behind only home mortgages (Federal Reserve Bank of New York 2016). These trends often attract media attention, illustrated by stories of recent college graduates carrying $100,000 in student loans and unable to repay their debt, buy a home, save for retirement, or start small busi- nesses (McDonald and Brady 2014). Such sto- ries are provocative, but they often focus on Nicholas Hillman is an associate professor of educa- tional leadership and policy analysis at the Univerit y of Wisconsin-Madison. His research examines how postsecondary finance intersects with college access and equity. He is also a faculty affiliate for the Wisconsin Center for Postsecondary Education and the Laollette School of Public Affairs. Kata Orosz is an associate research fellow at the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education at Central European University, Hungary. In her dissertation, she studied predictors of student loan use among under- graduates at four-year colleges and universities. Correspondence: nwhillman@wisc.edu DOI: 10.1177/0002716217704162 ANNALS, AAPSS, 671, May 2017 l]