[PODCAST] Melinda Lewis on the relationship between college savings and student debt

http://www.savingforcollege.com/articles/podcast-melinda-lewis-on-the-relationship-between-college-savings-and-student-debt-747

College tuition prices continue to rise; yet state appropriations to higher education have been declining. What’s more, schools are reducing the amount of need-based financial aid they award to prospective students and focusing more on merit-based awards for those who can afford to pay for their degree. The result is a shift of the burden of college costs from society to the students themselves. So for families without any savings, taking on some sort of loan is often the only way to get to college. But, as we know, loans can have a crippling effect on a young adult’s financial health, preventing their ability to build savings and even qualify for a mortgage.

Okay, so saving for college now reduces the amount you’ll have to borrow in the future. Sounds simple, right? But just how much of an effect does a college fund have on the likelihood that a student will have to borrow? According to new research, college graduates whose parents put some money put aside when they were high school sophomores were 39 percent less likely to have student loan debt than those who did not have any savings. And those who had savings but still had to borrow to cover the difference typically had lower loan balances.

In this episode of College Savings Insights, Melinda Lewis, Assistant Director of the Assets, Education and Inclusion (AEDI) department of the University of Kansas discusses her team’s latest research paper “Student Loan Debt: Can Parental College Savings Help?”.

Melinda Lewis is an Associate Professor of Practice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas and Assistant Director of the School’s Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion. Ms. Lewis received her Master of Social Work degree from Washington University and has spent more than a decade in policy advocacy, working on economic justice and human rights at the local, state, and federal government levels, as well as in community organizing, strategic communications, and organizational change to support policy campaigns. Her teaching is concentrated in the School’s macro social work and policy courses in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, while, at AEDI, Ms. Lewis is responsible for helping to translate research into materials with direct policy implications, supporting the Center’s scholarship in the areas of economic mobility and wealth creation, advancing the field of Children’s Savings Accounts, crafting media pieces to highlight the Center’s work, particularly regarding the impact of assets on educational outcomes, and bridging relationships with policymakers and asset practitioners.