The Impact of Transferring and Time-to-Graduation on Student Debt

Abstract

This paper tests for the impact of two primary variables on the amount ofstudent-debt load upon graduation: how long it has taken to graduate and whether astudent has transferred from another school. We focus on the undergraduates whograduated from the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) between the 2000 and 2010academic years. Our results show that the length of time it takes a student to graduate andtransferring fromanother school both significantlyincrease the student's total college debt.Most students who transfer to UNI come from a community college. Thus, communitycolleges may not provide the financial benefits students expect. (D14, I23)