Many countries have introduced student loans to support higher education participation and funding. However, the proportion of students who decide to use loans seems to vary greatly across higher education systems. In this project, we investigate institutional and individual-level factors that influence student loan uptake. This issue is relevant because insufficient or poorly designed financial support may force students to rely more on paid work to maintain a standard of living, push them into poverty if finding employment or family support is not possible, or lead to excessive debt upon study completion. These circumstances can, in turn, have adverse consequences for study and graduate outcomes.

We explain student loan take-up in a set of cross-country comparative studies, enabling us to assess the significance of the institutional context in which student loans operate, including other elements of student funding like grants or fees. First, we create a unique database containing detailed information on state-subsidised loan schemes in 34 advanced economies between 2010 and 2022. Second, this dataset is used in a mixed-method study to examine whether the type of loan and the degree of subsidisation are related to national take-up ratios. Third, we use the Eurostudent surveys and data from our original survey experiment conducted in Poland, Spain, and Sweden to analyse what drives students’ attitudes toward loans and their likelihood of incurring debt for their studies.