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"5 facts about student loans."

Source:
Cilluffo, Anthony. "5 facts about student loans." FACTANK News in the Numbers. Pew Research Center. 24 Aug. 2017. Web. 26 Sep. 2017.

Summary:
This source provides a look into the Pew Research Center’s analysis of the data from the Federal Reserve Board’s 2016 Survey of Household Economics and Decisonmaking. The Author, Anthony Cilluffo, a research assistant with the Pew Research Center presents 5 points derived from the analysis of the survey data in the light of the ever growing $1.3 trillion of student loan debt in America. In keeping with the Pew Research Centers commitment to impartial research he reports the facts from the data analysis, which seem to support the attaining of a college degree while pointing out the pitfalls of the actual and perceived issues from obtaining student loan debt as reported by the survey respondents.

Quality:
This appears to be a high-quality source. The original data is from the Federal Reserve Board and the analysis of that data was completed by the Pew Research Center, which has dedicated its mission to accuracy, objectivity and the transparency of their research. Mr. Cilluffo does cite other research from the National Center for Educational Statistics to backup some of the data in his 5 points. He also references several other Pew Research Center Analysis, based on research from the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey, both conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and other data derived from the IRS Tax Administration.

Issues:
The article has its limitations, due to the five facts being mostly derived from a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve Board’s 2016 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. The survey conducted by the Consumer and Community Development Research Section of the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Consumer and Community Affairs (DCCA) has drawbacks due to the size of the sample and the sample demographics including an oversample of lower-income individuals with a household income less than $40,000 per year making up 3,417 of the total 11,882 individuals sampled. Also only 55.9 percent or 6,643 of the number sampled completed the survey and 33 of those were excluded from the results due to large numbers of missing responses, completing the survey too quickly or both.

Key Words and Phrases:
Education
College Tuition
Economics and Personal Finances
Student Loans
Student Debt

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