The combination of increasing college costs and decreasing state funding has pushed the burden of financing postsecondary education onto students, creating a college access and completion problem for students experiencing low income. Furthermore, an increasing number of students leave college with large student loan debt, further exacerbating racial and economic disparities in the ability to repay debt. To reduce racial, ethnic, and economic disparities in how new college students finance their education, which in turn can affect long-term inequities in higher education attainment, research is needed to understand college financing experiences and to explore the efficacy of remediation strategies.

An interdisciplinary team of Amy Stich of the University of Georgia and GPL’s Myla Williams, and Daivon Jarrell, who are also Achieve Atlanta (AATL) scholars, will use critical participatory action research (CPAR) to provide important context about how Achieve Atlanta scholars make decisions about financing their education, taking on loans, and their plans to repay their loans. This team seeks to incorporate AATL scholars’ perspectives and experiences into the research process, which will include developing research questions and conducting the qualitative data collection. This study seeks to add depth, new information, and context to a related quantitative project; center students’ voices; and train a future generation of equity-focused policy researchers. The undergraduate research assistants will also receive mentorship and coaching from Kyela Gadi and Za Eng Mawi.

This project is supported by an Institutional Challenge Grant, jointly funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.