Educational loan, students’ self-efficacy, attitude towards debt, and their impact on retention and graduation in minority-serving institution

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This study was conducted to address a very critical current national issue: the student loans and its relationship with students’ self-efficacy, attitude toward debt, and retention and graduation rates at a minority serving institution. The findings may guide the leadership decisions toward the best practices for the students’ best academic success, future employment, and career. This research employed a mixed method research design, which involved data collection through a survey. Collected data are the representative sample of the population in several aspects: 1) Gender, 2) Residency (In-State/Out-of-State), 3) Race, 4) Class of the first-time freshmen, 5) Credit hours students are registered for the semester, and 5) student athletes. The collected data was analyzed by t-test, Chi-Square and Fisher’s exact test for the significance, and correlations among the studied variables. Among the other significant correlations, the results show some of the very important findings: (i) The female population is less like to borrow money and agrees more than the male that borrowed money should be repaid as soon as possible; (ii) Out-of-State students have a perception that they will acquire higher debt then the In-State students. This show that they are aware of the higher costs of the Out-of-State tuitions and fees; (iii) The students are aware about the educational debt, they are concerned about its repayment, and this is the first step toward financial self-efficacy. The higher the amount of the perceived debt students believe they will acquire till graduation, the more they are concerned about paying the loan back; (iv) As students matriculate toward the graduation their perception about the amount of debt is higher. Seniors have demonstrated more responsibility toward debt and agree that it is important to live within one’s means; (v) As the amount of perceived loan by the time of graduation increases, the students’ confidence to perform up to the best of his/her potential academically decreases. Findings of the research suggest that academic resources are necessary for the students to help improve their academic progress, which will ultimately improve the institutional retention and graduation rates. Recommendations and suggestion for future research have been made.

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