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Every year, millions of parents across the United States try to support their children’s education and future well-being by funding their higher education using any means available. When dependent undergraduate students cannot cover their cost of attendance through available aid, parents are often left with one option for assistance: the Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (Parent PLUS) loan program.
This report from the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality explores critical features of the Parent PLUS loan experiences of parents and students from low-income households. Among the report’s findings:
- Parent PLUS burdens parents with low incomes with debt levels that are extremely high in proportion to their earnings.
- Current program design collides with racialized economic inequality and disproportionately harms borrowers of color.
- Geographic trends may affect the likelihood of people from low-income backgrounds incurring Parent PLUS debt.
- Both private for-profit and nonprofit four-year colleges disburse Parent PLUS debt to lower-income parents at higher rates than to higher-income parents.