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Does Student Loan Debt Structure Young People’s Housing Tenure? Evidence from England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2021

ARIANE DE GAYARDON Open the ORCID record for ARIANE DE GAYARDON [Opens in a new window] ,
CLAIRE CALLENDER Open the ORCID record for CLAIRE CALLENDER [Opens in a new window]  and
STEPHEN L. DESJARDINS
ARIANE DE GAYARDON
Affiliation:
Centre for Global Higher Education, UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, United Kingdom and Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands. email: a.gayardon@ucl.ac.uk +44 20 7911 5344
CLAIRE CALLENDER
Affiliation:
Centre for Global Higher Education, UCL Institute of Education and Birkbeck, 26 Russell Square, LondonWC1B 5DQ, United Kingdom
STEPHEN L. DESJARDINS
Affiliation:
Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan, 610 E University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States
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Abstract

This article analyses the interaction between two policy areas affecting young people in England – housing and student funding. It is the first of its kind exploring a range of dynamics in the relationship between housing and student loan debt. Young people today are far less likely to own their home and are more likely to live with their parents than earlier generations. In parallel, higher education tuition fee increases have led to a growing share of students taking out loans and graduating with higher debt, which they will be repaying for most of their working lives. This research examines the relationship between student loans – having borrowed for higher education and attitudes towards debt – and housing tenure at age 25, using the Next Steps dataset. We find that young graduates who did not borrow for higher education are more likely to own their home and less likely to rent or live with their parents than graduates who borrowed for their studies or young people who never attended higher education. These results suggest that higher education funding policies and student loan debt play important roles in structuring young people’s housing in England.

Keywords

housingyoung peoplehomeownershipparental co-residencehigher educationstudent loans
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 221 - 241
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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