Trellis Company Research, Reports, and Studies
Student Financial Wellness Survey Report
There is growing recognition that the interplay of student collegiate finances and academic performance influences key student outcomes like retention and graduation. Students experiencing high [...]
Highlights of Trellis Company’s Student Financial Impact study
In January 2017, Trellis launched a nine-month study aimed at better understanding the non-academic challenges that postsecondary students face and the ways they try [...]
Engaging Student Borrowers: Results of a Survey of Financial Aid Professionals
The rising cost of attending college creates a financial challenge for most students, many of whom must take out student loans to pursue their education [...]
Effective Counseling, Empowered Borrowers: An evidence-based policy agenda for informed student loan borrowing and repayment
To manage their loans effectively, U.S. postsecondary student loan borrowers must make a variety of important decisions that require significant knowledge and financial skills [...]
Above and Beyond: What eight colleges are doing to improve student loan counseling
Federal law requires colleges to provide student loan counseling to their federal student loan borrowers, which colleges can do by directing their students to complete [...]
A Time to Every Purpose: Understanding and improving the borrower experience with online student loan entrance counseling
Legally mandated student loan entrance counseling attempts to prepare first-time borrowers of federal student loans for this challenge; yet, researchers hypothesized that the online modules [...]
Informed or Overwhelmed? A legislative history of student loan counseling with a literature review on the efficacy of loan counseling
This report (the first in a series of five) explores congressional efforts to mitigate that risk and encourage informed borrowing by enacting statutes related [...]
From Passive to Proactive: Understanding and improving the borrower experience with online student loan exit counseling
Legally mandated student loan exit counseling attempts to prepare borrowers of federal student loans for the repayment process; yet, researchers hypothesized that the online [...]
Developmental Education and Student Debt: Remediation’s Uncertain Impact on Financial and Academic Outcomes
This study examines the borrowing and repayment habits of students who take developmental education coursework in higher education, compared to their peers who do [...]
Detecting Early Signs of Default Risk at Austin Community College
This study examines how variables derived from Austin Community College's (ACC) institutional systems are related to default outcomes for the group of ACC borrowers [...]
Transfer Students, Financial Aid, and a New Perspective on Undermatching
Contrary to popular wisdom on college savings, national data show that bachelor's recipients who transferred from community colleges tend to borrow as much, if [...]
Behind the Numbers: Making Sense of Cohort Default Rates
This guide is intended as a primer on federal student loan CDRs for postsecondary school administrators and other parties who want to learn more [...]
Financial Aid at the Crossroads: Managing the Student Debt Crisis in Texas
This report examines the state of financial aid, higher education completion, and financial literacy in Texas, as well as the current job market and [...]
A Brief Look at…the Texas B-On-Time Loan Program
This policy brief provides a summary on the background, eligibility requirements, renewal qualifications, and student loan forgiveness provisions for this loan program offered to [...]
Balancing Passion and Practicality: The Role of Debt and Major on Students’ Financial Outcomes
Using data from national sources, this report examines debt-to-income ratios for various majors and occupations and assesses the financial boost students may get from [...]
Digging Deeper: An Analysis of Student Loan Debt in Texas
This report to the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature examines multiple, converging issues related to student loan debt in Texas. In particular, [...]
With Great Challenges Come Great Opportunities: Promising Practices of Texas Community Colleges
The report highlights effective strategies at three schools in Texas chosen for their higher than average persistence, workforce placement, and Pell recipient rates, and [...]
How to Graduate High-Risk Students: Lessons from Successful For-Profit Colleges and Schools in Texas
This research report examines the factors — organizational practices and structures — that enable four Texas for-profit schools to succeed in retaining and graduating [...]
Profile of Minority-Serving Institutions in Texas
This short paper examines the cohort student loan delinquency and default rates, federal borrowing and indebtedness, and methods of paying for college at Historically [...]
The Toughest Test: The Student Loan Liquidity Crisis of 2007-08 in Texas
This paper outlines the important factors of the student loan "credit crunch," analyzing the subprime mortgage crisis, how it affected student loans, and the [...]
Multivariate Analysis of Student Loan Defaulters at Prairie View A&M University
This study examine the default behavior of 3,325 Prairie View A&M undergraduate student loan borrowers who entered repayment during 2001-02 through logistic regression analysis. [...]
Ready, Willing, and Unable: How Financial Barriers Obstruct Bachelor-Degree Attainment in Texas
A report to the 80th regular session of the Texas Legislature estimating the number of bachelor degrees in Texas that might have been earned had [...]
The Role of Work and Loans in Paying for an Undergraduate Education
This report uses data from the U.S. Department of Education’s 2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) and other sources to describe the role [...]
Opening the Doors to Higher Education: Perspectives on the Higher Education Act 40 Years Later
This report traces the history of higher education policy beginning with George Washington's administration through the momentous activities and circumstances that led to the [...]
Multivariate Analysis of Student Loan Defaulters at Texas A&M University at Kingsville
This study examines the default behavior of 5,177 TAMU-K undergraduate student loan borrowers who entered repayment during 1999-2002 through logistic regression analysis. The model [...]
Multivariate Analysis of Student Loan Defaulters at the University of South Florida
This study examines the default behavior of 17,036 USF undergraduates who entered student loan repayment during 1999-2002 through logistic regression analysis. The model both [...]
Multivariate Analysis of Student Loan Defaulters at Texas A&M University
A follow-up to the 2003 analysis of 12,776 Texas A&M student loan borrowers, this study both reinforces some of the findings of the earlier [...]
Student Loan Default Literature Review
This publication summarizes 17 research studies and categorizes them according to distinct variables that may have a relationship to student loan default. Categories include [...]
Breaking New Ground, The Texas Historically Black Colleges and Universities Default Management Consortium
A report detailing best practices that helped Texas HBCUs decrease their cohort student loan default rates. The consortium compiled the report as a resource [...]
First-Generation College Students: A Literature Review
This publication summarizes various research studies related to first-generation college students and categorizes them according to issues including access, student characteristics, retention, pre-college intervention [...]
The Characteristics Associated with Student Loan Default at Texas A&M University
A study examining the student loan default behavior of undergraduate student loan borrowers who attended Texas A&M and who entered repayment on TG-guaranteed FFELP [...]
Retention and Persistence in Postsecondary Education
A summary of relevant information focusing on one basic issue - keeping students in school. The report discusses a number of facts, studies, theories, [...]
Education on the Installment Plan: The Rise of Student Loan Indebtedness in Texas
Provides the context for understanding the relationship between student loan debt and student loan repayment. The report documents median indebtedness for both graduates and [...]