Turner research featured on Morning Edition
College financial aid letters can provide a nudge toward borrowing, or not
National Public Radio's Elissa Nadworny spoke with Faculty Associate Leslie Turner for a "Morning Edition" story on student loan debt.
Dr. Turner's research paper with Benjamin Marks of the University of Illinois uses college financial aid policies as a natural experiment: some community colleges do not include a reference to available federal loan funding in their financial award letters. For students who were offered federal aid and who took it, Turner noted, "They attempted more courses; they earned more credits and they had higher grade point averages. There were also sizable increases in the likelihood of transferring to a 4-year public institution, to a Bachelor's degree program."