Megan Shkolyar ’20 is a founding member of Gorges Ventures, a student-managed and financed investment club focused on investing in companies founded by Cornell University students in the classes of 2024 and 2025.
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See all eventsFinancial Consequences of Student Loan Delinquency, Default, and Servicer Quality Abstract: Student loans are now the third largest form of household debt, and nearly 6 million federal student loan borrowers are in default. Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and the federal government has unique levers for collecting on defaulted debt, leading to potentially severe financial consequences for borrowers. Using consumer credit panel data, I examine the credit market consequences of student loan delinquency and default and the role that student loan servicers play in contributing to borrower outcomes. I exploit random assignment of student loan borrowers to student loan servicers to study the direct effect of servicers on borrowers’ credit outcomes and to isolate variation in the likelihood of default that is not correlated with borrower characteristics. I find that being assigned to a higher-default servicer increases a borrower’s likelihood of default by approximately 6%. However, there is a precisely estimated null effect of servicer assignment on measures of borrowers’ likelihood of financial distress, credit access, and zip-code characteristics. These findings suggest that averting a servicer-induced default does not yield considerable benefits for marginal borrowers’ credit outcomes, but that servicers are meaningful drivers of student loan repayment outcomes.
Graduate Programs for Workplace Leaders
The ILR School's four graduate degrees in workplace studies are led by faculty whose teaching and research influences individuals and organizations around the world. Through these programs, students explore topics such as labor relations, human resources and organizational behavior, empowering graduates to lead and transform today's dynamic workplaces.
James T. Carter received his Ph.D. from Columbia and has held numerous education and human resource positions. He joined ILR’s Department of Organizational Behavior in Fall 2023.
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the Future of Work.
The Martin P. Catherwood Library is the most comprehensive resource on labor and employment in North America, offering expert research support through reference services, instruction, online guides and access to premier collections.