The loan and financial aid theory: an empirical investigation of domestic and international graduate students with emergency loan needs signal global challenge to manage the cost of US education

Abstract

This research addresses graduate students studying in the USA who are either US citizens or non-resident aliens who demonstrated emergency loan needs. There have been limited studies that have compared US citizen or non-resident alien graduate students in relation to emergency loan need and GPA. To address this issue, we conducted research by collecting data from 290 graduate students enrolled in a large public university located in the USA. The dataset includes 188 students who are US citizens or have US permanent residency; and 102 non-resident aliens. The results of the regression analysis shows that there is no significant relationship between GPA and emergency loan need for graduate students who are either US citizens or international students. Also, in our data analysis, the visual representation of the dataset strongly indicates that emergency loan need exists in a diverse spectrum of nationality, colleges, degree types, ethnicity, gender, and marital status. These results have practical and theoretical implications for administrations and key decision makers in higher education.