Can Private Markets Fill the Gap? Graduate Student Lending After the Elimination of GradPLUS
中文摘要
《一项大而美的法案》（OBBBA，公法119-21）自2026年7月1日起取消面向新借款人的联邦GradPLUS贷款项目，以20,500美元的年度限额（11个专业领域为50,000美元）和新的累计上限，取代了延续近二十年的无上限联邦研究生贷款。由此形成的融资缺口——每年约80亿美元，涉及约37万名借款人——引出了私人资本是否会以及如何替代被取代的联邦贷款这一问题。本文分析这一转型背后的经济学。在GradPLUS推出之前，私人贷款机构填补了联邦Stafford贷款限额与研究生项目成本之间的缺口；到2005—06学年，非联邦研究生贷款发放额已达53亿美元（按2024年不变美元计）。2006年，GradPLUS将联邦借款额度扩大至覆盖全部就读成本，此后私人贷款急剧萎缩——几年内降幅超过70%，且此后从未恢复。联邦项目不仅提供信贷，还通过收入驱动型还款和公共服务贷款豁免，为借款人提供私人产品无法复制的收入风险保险。挤出私人贷款的这些特征同时造成了不断累积的扭曲：借款与偿还能力脱钩、学费承受上行压力，以及联邦财政状况从预计盈余逆转为每发放1美元GradPLUS贷款损失超过30美分。本文将按院校和专业划分的联邦借款数据与同样按院校和专业划分的收入结果相匹配，考察各项目历史借款超过OBBBA新上限的程度与完成学业后收入之间的关系。研究发现，不同学位项目通过私人贷款机构或其他来源获得超出上限借款的潜在承受能力存在显著差异。在法律和MBA等领域，收入随借款敞口陡峭上升，为项目层面的风险定价提供了依据；在社会工作、咨询心理学和物理治疗等领域，收入—借款梯度则基本持平。本文还考察了影响这一转型的私人资本市场特征及院校应对措施，包括制约私人贷款规模扩张的资本约束、在承销中使用项目层面结果数据所面临的法律障碍，以及院校作为贷款机构与学生之间中介的新兴作用。
Abstract
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA, P.L. 119-21) eliminates the federal GradPLUS loan program for new borrowers effective July 1, 2026, replacing nearly two decades of uncapped federal graduate lending with annual limits of $20,500 ($50,000 for eleven professional fields) and new aggregate caps. The resulting financing gap — approximately $8 billion annually across roughly 370,000 affected borrowers — raises the question of whether and how private capital will substitute for displaced federal lending. This paper analyzes the economics of that transition. Before GradPLUS, private lenders filled the gap between federal Stafford limits and graduate program costs, with nonfederal graduate originations reaching $5.3 billion (constant 2024 dollars) by 2005–06. After GradPLUS extended federal borrowing to the full cost of attendance in 2006, private lending collapsed — falling more than 70 percent within a few years and never recovering. The federal program provided not only credit but, through income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness, insurance against earnings risk that no private product could replicate. The same features that crowded out private lending generated compounding distortions: borrowing untethered to repayment capacity, upward pressure on tuition, and a reversal from projected federal surpluses to losses exceeding thirty cents per GradPLUS dollar lent. Linking institution-by-field federal borrowing data to institution-by-field earnings outcomes, I examine the relationship between historical borrowing above the new OBBBA caps and post-completion earnings across programs. I find substantial variation in the extent to which different degree programs would likely support above-cap borrowing from private lenders or other sources. In fields such as law and MBA, earnings rise steeply with borrowing exposure, providing a basis for program-level risk pricing; in fields such as social work, counseling psychology, and physical therapy, the earnings-to-borrowing gradient is essentially flat. I also examine features of the private capital market and institutional responses shaping the transition — including capital constraints on scaling private lending, legal barriers to using program-level outcomes data in underwriting, and the emerging role of institutions as intermediaries between lenders and students.