Pew Trusts to Study Students' Debt.

Navigation: Main page

Author: Walters, Anne K.

The Pew Charitable Trusts will spend $3.5-million studying students' college-loan debt and looking for ways to shrink it, Pew officials said in August. The Pew program, called the Partnership to Reduce the Burden of Student Debt, will spend two years studying the issue, according to a statement released by the organization.

Pew hopes to work with students, educators, and others to draw attention to the debt issue, and to study whether current levels of federal spending could do more good. It hopes to see that "public dollars are used more effectively," Rebecca W. Rimel, president and chief executive of the Pew Charitable Trusts, said in an interview.

Although details of the project are still being worked out, Pew hopes to mobilize students on campuses and through media outlets like MTV, Ms. Rimel said. The project will also involve policy makers and think tanks.

The project comes at a time when some middle-class families are unable to take on the financial burden of loans to pay for college, Ms. Rimel said. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly two-thirds of recent college graduates had some student loans.

"All of us who went through college on a loan program and were able to pay that off in fairly short order would hope that this generation can do the same," she said.

~~~~~~~~

By Anne K. Walters