한국장학재단의 학자금대출과 국가장학금 수혜에 따른 대학생의 학업성취도, 대학 생활 및 여가와 삶의 질 분석

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This study aimed to compare policy effects of two main pillars of national financial aid programs—student loans and national scholarships—operating under the shared objective of financial assistance for higher education but in different ways, focusing on university students’ outcomes, student life, leisure, and quality of life. We utilized data from the KEEP II covering 2018~2021. The study identified groups receiving student loans and national scholarships through the Korea Student Aid Foundation (KOSAF), employing propensity score matching (PSM) to control for sample selection bias. A two-way fixed effects (FE) analysis was conducted using four years of data to account for individual-specific and time-specific effects. Furthermore, this study estimates the Average Treatment Effect on the Untreated (ATU) by predicting the effects on the group that received student loans if they were to receive national scholarships. The analysis yielded the following findings: while there were no statistically significant differences between the national scholarship and student loan groups in terms of academic performance and university life variables, the scholarship recipients exhibited a statistically significant positive effect on health and quality of life-related dependent variables. In other words, students who received national scholarships were more likely to have regular breakfast, increase their weekday leisure time, engage in more physical exercise, and enjoy better sleep quality, and increase happiness. The significance of this study lies in its focus on the relationship between financial aid, student health, and quality of life. Methodologically, by setting the control group for propensity score matching to resemble the actual policy target group, thereby facilitating a comparison of the effects of the two financial aid policies. Based on these findings, the study suggests policy implications.