In the present study, survey participants are asked to provide college attendance loan advice to a randomly assigned experimental scenario. The paper finds that participants are influenced by their own student loan experience (or lack of) to determine if and how much student loans should young adults in the hypothetical scenarios take. The study contributes to our understanding of the decision-making process of taking out student loans while providing evidence of an instance of anchoring effects having potential real-life implications.
Author(s): Nilton Porto, Soo Hyun Cho, Michael Gutter
