Law Commons^™

Mortgaging The American Dream: The Misplaced Role Of Accreditation In The Federal Student Loan System, Kathleen Negri

Fordham Law Review

In 2013, outstanding student loan balances in the United States exceeded $994 billion. This growing volume of student debt has had far–reaching consequences for both individual borrowers and society as a whole. In many ways, the federal student loan program, available to students under the Higher Education Act (HEA), has achieved its goal of making higher education more accessible. Undergraduate college enrollment increased from 10.5 million students in 1980 to 17.6 million students in 2009. Despite the benefit of increased enrollment, however, the federal loan program has been criticized for increasing student loan debt and contributing to the “student loan …