Loan Administration Research Articles

The Impact of Credit Risk Management on Financial Performance of Commercial Banks in Ethiopia

This study delves into the intricate relationship between credit risk management strategies and the financial performance of commercial banks in Ethiopia. By analyzing data from 14 banks over a span of 13 years (2011-2023) using correlation and regression analyses in E-Views 12 software, the research sheds light on the impact of key indicators such as credit interest income ratio, loan to total deposit ratio, and loan to total asset ratio on financial outcomes. The findings reveal that while certain metrics positively influence financial performance, such as credit interest income and loan ratios, the presence of nonperforming loans exerts a negative impact on bank profitability, emphasizing the critical need for effective management of credit risks to ensure sustained financial health. In light of these results, it is recommended that Ethiopian commercial banks prioritize the enhancement of credit risk management practices, with a specific focus on strategies to address nonperforming loans. Strengthening credit analysis frameworks and refining loan administration processes are crucial steps towards safeguarding profitability and bolstering long-term stability within the banking sector. Policymakers and industry stakeholders are encouraged to collaborate in developing and implementing robust risk management frameworks that not only protect the financial viability of commercial banks but also contribute to the resilience and growth of the broader financial landscape in Ethiopia.

고등교육 보편화에 따른 중국 학자금 대출 제도와 미국 연방 학자금 대출 제도 비교분석

[Purpose] This study aimed to comprehensively examine the current situation of Chinese student loan system in the context of the universalisation of higher education in China, and to make feasible recommendations for improvement based on a comparative analysis with the United States federal student loan system.
 [Methods] Using a comparative research method, this study provided a detailed analysis that outlines the critical differences between the student loan systems in China and the U.S. Pivotal points include access to information channels, required documentation, loan types, support scope, and repayment strategies. Data were collected from official national websites, policies, and a range of secondary data sources.
 [Results] The study showed that central governments in both China and the U.S. have played an important role in guiding the student loan system to promote educational equity. However, significant gaps and limitations have been identified in Chinese student loans. These include the fragmentation of information channels and the complexity of the application process; the uniformity of loan types; the narrow scope of support; and the unity of repayment options. In contrast, the U.S. has a more mature and detailed system with features such as specialised student loan administration and servicing agencies, the convenience of online services, the diversity of loan types, the breadth of support and the flexibility of repayment plans.
 [Conclusion] This study suggested that China should improve the efficiency of its student loan system by borrowing from the U.S. federal student loan system. Specific strategies include building an efficient student loan platform that integrates online and offline services; expanding the types and amounts of loans and implementing a total loan limit model; and promoting the implementation of Income-Driven Repayment Plans to meet the needs of more students.

Bank Credits and Economic Growth

This study examined the effect of bank credit on the growth of the Nigerian economy. The study was specifically meant to assess the impact of bank credit to the agricultural sector on the growth of the Nigerian economy; to determine the effect of bank credit to the manufacturing sector on the growth of the Nigerian economy and lastly to assess the effect of bank credit to the mining and quarrying sector on the growth of the Nigerian economy. To achieve these objectives, the study employed the ex-post facto research approach. Time-series data were collected from the CBN Statistical Bulletins using the desk survey method from 1985 to 2018. The data were analysed using various econometric techniques such as the descriptive statistics test, the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test, Correlation matrix, and Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL). Findings from the analyses showed that there was an insignificant short-run effect of bank credit on the growth of the Nigerian economy. It was also revealed that there was a significant long-run effect of bank credit on the growth of the Nigerian economy. Based on these findings, the study recommend the establishment of an agency were all commercial farmers would be registered with responsibilities to interface with banks to ensuring that loans are free from collateral requirements, interest rate charges and loan administration bottlenecks in order to encourage commercial farming and towards enhanced economic growth in Nigeria. Also, policies targeted at reducing the interest rate charged on bank credit to the manufacturing sector in Nigeria should be implemented by the CBN through the conscious subsidy of all bank credit to the manufacturing sector as this is required to trigger productivity and enhance short term economic growth.

The Impact of Credit Bureau on the Non-Performing Loans Situation in the Nigerian Banking Landscape

Lending in the Nigerian banking space has continued to evolve over the years. As changes have occurred in the banking system, so has the level of non-performing loans evolved.
 While the growth in non-performing loans has been as a result of various unwholesome practices in the industry, others have been as a result of global economic downturn such as the United States housing bubble in 2007 - 2008 and then the fall in demand and price of crude oil in 2016, caused another round of financial crisis.
 The Nigerian banking landscape has been bedeviled with lots of non-performing loan challenges over the years. The disbursement of credit facilities in the form of advances, loans, and overdrafts by banks to corporate bodies, individuals, private and public entities occupies a critical and strategic position in the economic growth of a nation. To perform this function, Banks muster funds from the nation’s surplus economic unit of the economy.
 This thesis focuses on how the establishment of credit bureau has impacted the growth or otherwise of non-performing loans, lending practices and policies of banks in Nigeria. 
 Collected and analyzed data through primary and secondary sources. Questionnaires were administered to bank officials and the three major credit bureau companies. However, as is the case with questionnaires distributed, some were returned unanswered due to people being reluctant to furnish detailed replies. 
 This study sets out the theoretical background, rationalization and objectives of the study. A lot of literature reviews on lending policies and reviews of credit control in the banking industry were undertaken, the need for efficient loan administration and the causes of non-performing loans in the banking industry. A summary of the findings, recommended solution and conclusion to the research problems is presented. The outcome revealed that deficient credit analysis, as well as any negative economic impact on the country, has always played a major role in the growth of non-performing loans.
 This study examined the reasons for non-performing loans in the Nigerian banking industry and the impact the credit bureau has played. The ex-post facto research design was adopted during the course of the study. Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and Financial Statement of banks for the period 1994-2019 were collated for the time series analysis. The five hypotheses stated were tested using the Ordinary least square regression. Non-performing loans measured by the natural logarithm of aggregate non-performing loans of banks represented the dependent variable, while gross domestic product, inflation rate, total loans and advances, total assets and bank’s lending rate were adopted as the independent variables for the five hypotheses of the study. Macroeconomic variables such as exchange rate, and interest rate were also included as control variables. 
 The result derived from this study showed that GDP had a negative effect on non-performing loans; Bank lending rate, Inflation rate and total loans and advances all had a positive effect on non-performing loans but was insignificant; total Assets exerted a negative effect on non-performing loans and was statistically significant at the 0.05 level.

Analisis Text Mining pada Sosial Media Twitter Menggunakan Metode Support Vector Machine (SVM) dan Social Network Analysis (SNA)

Online loans are growing rapidly in Indonesia in the last two years. This is because the online loan administration requirements are easier compared to bank financial service loans. Online loans are financial services that provide online-based services. Along with the development of online loans, many illegal online loans have sprung up and often commit violations, such as leaking customer personal information and abusing data by carrying out extreme actions such as terrorizing customers who make online loan transactions. This certainly gets a lot of comments from the public, especially on social media twitter. This study aims to conduct a sentiment analysis to see what phenomena are happening among the public regarding online loans. The data used are tweets or retweets from Twitter social media with #pinjamanonline #pinjol. Twitter social media was chosen because an incident can become a phenomenon if it gets a lot of attention from the community, especially on Twitter social media. In this study, using text mining techniques by applying the Support Vector Machine algorithm to classify sentiments on twitter users regarding online loans. This study also looks at the interactions that occur on social media Twitter using social network analysis (SNA). the results of research and testing of the Support Vector Machine method to classify online loans with an Accuracy value level of 86.6%, with a positive precision of 86%, neutral of 1.00% and negative of 87%, positive recall of 90%, neutral 87% and negative of 26 % and positive F1-Score of 88% neutral 42% and negative 86%. Then at the Social Network Analysis stage there is the most influential account, namely influencer @alvinline21 with 1402 nodes.

CONSTRAINTS TO FARMERS’ ACCESS, UTILIZATION AND REPAYMENT OF BANK OF AGRICULTURE’S LOAN IN NORTH CENTRAL, NIGERIA

The study analyzed the factors constraining the ease of access, utilization and repayment of agricultural credit of the Bank of Agriculture to farmers in North Central, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to sample a total of 202 beneficiary farmers of BOA credit in the region. Primary data were elicited from the farmers with the aid of structured questionnaire that was complemented with interview schedule. Data analysis was done with descriptive statistics and principal component model. The result revealed that six (6) factors constitute the major constraints adversely affecting farmers’ access and utilization of BOA loans and they include bank structure and interest rates (10.8%), risks (9.5%), perception and poor loan administration (9.5%), integrity (7.8%), profitability (7.8%) and collateral constraint (7.7%) which explained a total of 53.2% of the variance in the 17 constraining variable components. The study concluded that these factors pose great threat to financing agricultural sector by formal institutions and consequently affecting agricultural productivity of the farmers in the region. It therefore calls for urgent intervention and remedy by all the relevant stakeholders. The study recommended that the procedures for the agricultural loan applications, approval and disbursement should be emendated to aid farmers’ ease of access of the loan and its optimal utilization which conveniently enhances the repayment. It was further recommended that the Bank embrace technology to make up for its poor spread and reach across the country.

PENGARUH KUALITAS JASA TERHADAP KEPUASAN ANGGOTA KOPERASI SIMPAN PINJAM KARYA MURNI MEDAN

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of quality on the satisfaction of members of the Karya Murni Savings and Loans Cooperative Medan. The type of research used is descriptive and quantitative. The research sample was 96 respondents with the maximum sampling error sampling method from the population carried out randomly. The required data was collected through a questionnaire. The data analysis method used is multiple linear regression analysis. The results showed that the trend of the number of cooperative members, the remaining operating results and the total assets of the cooperative decreased, this happened because of the dissatisfaction of the members in terms of the loan interest rates offered were higher than other savings and loan cooperatives, the length of time span between the application and loan disbursement ( checking files, guarantees, checking guarantees) while the need for funds is urgent, there are many administrative costs (fee to become a member, notary deed fees, fees if members borrow, loan administration fees and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that makes members' businesses stand still and unable to do so). paying dues obligations and loan installments this makes members leave the cooperative.
 Based on the F-test, with a significant level of 0.000 F-table which is 2.58, meaning that service quality simultaneously has a positive and significant effect on member satisfaction. The results of the t-test, that the tangibles variable, has a positive effect on the satisfaction of the members of the cooperative, but it is not significant on the satisfaction of the members of the cooperative. While empathy has a negative effect on the satisfaction of the members of the cooperative, but it is significant on the satisfaction of the members of the cooperative. Seeing the weakness of the t-test of the tangible and empathy variables, it is suggested that the management of the cooperative needs to review it by providing a uniqueness that is different from other competitors so that members can enjoy the results that are felt to exceed expectations, so that members will be very satisfied and remain loyal to the services offered. by members of the Karya Murni Savings and Loans Cooperative Medan

Pengaruh Lingkungan Kerja Dan Pengembangan Karyawan Terhadap Kepuasan Kerja Karyawan Pada Bank BTN (Persero) Cabang Karangasem

The research is conducted in order to analyze the influence of working environment, employee development toward work satisfaction in BTN Bank (Persero) Karangasem to obtain of more deep influence of employee development ,working environment toward worked satisfaction in BTN Bank (Persero) Karangasem. Data is analyzed constructively by using the technique analyze the simple regression and multiple regression analysis. Research location is the employee in BTN Bank (Perswero) Karangasem The method of this research is simple random sampling, that taken 55 Operational Division employee at Transaction Process Division, Loan Administration Division, and General Administration Division, while data collecting by using questionnaire and cultivated using SPSS 19.0. The result of t test for working environment is 2.123, and the signification is 0.038. This shows that there is an effect between working environment toward job satisfaction. The result of t test for employee development is -2.160 ,and the signification is 0.035 This shows that there is an effect between employee development toward job satisfaction. The result of F test is 5.798, and the signification is 0.005. This shows that there is an effect between working environment and employee development toward job satisfaction. The result of R2 is 0.182 or 18,2%. It means Job Satisfaction is affected by working environment and employee development as much as 18,2%.
 Keywords: working environment, employee development, job satisfaction

SISTEM INFORMASI ADMINISTRASI PINJAMAN (KREDIT) PADA CREDO UNION MODIFIKASI (CUM) BERBASIS WEB

Modified Union credo is a cooperative-type business entity owned by a group of people in a unifying bond, which agrees to invest their money (shares) so as to create joint capital with decent business results and for productive and welfare purposes. The role of cooperatives is very important in Indonesia, because cooperatives can increase the economic growth of Indonesian society. The loan administration information system (credit) at CUM Caritas HKBP Pematangsiantar is not yet effective, because it still uses a manual system so that data is easily lost and difficult to find, and the preparation of reports takes a long time. The purpose of this study is to build a system that makes it easier for staff to process data for CUM Caritas HKBP members and improve staff performance to be more efficient and minimize errors in data processing, especially in the loan administration (credit) section of CUM Caritas HKBP. In this research, in the process of collecting data, the researcher used the method of observation, interviews and literature study and the method of system development to be used was the Prototype method. The information system to be designed will be in the form of a web and use the MySQL database. It is hoped that this research can solve the problem of Loan Administration (Credit) at CUM Caritas HKBP Pematangsiantar.

PEMANFAATAN MEDIA AUDIO VISUAL DALAM MENGUATKAN KOMUNIKASI ORGANISASI KOPERASI WANITA

Koperasi Wanita Usaha Wanita Mandiri was created as a forum for women's groups to be 
 economically empowered. When applying the rules of lending and repayment activities every 
 month when members meet, management has facing contrainst. The purpose of this standard 
 operating procedures (SOP) is to help the group's management and group leader of disciplining 
 and facilitating the savings and loan administration at the level of the group chairwoman, 
 treasurer and cashier. The method used is a lecture - a discussion conducted in three meetings to 
 indetified and defined problem . The socialization of SOP for loans and repayment of loans is 
 socialized through whatsapp communication media. The obstacle of socialization is the limited 
 internet quota of some members in the Carangpulang 1 and Carangpulang 2 groups in accessing 
 this SOP in whatsapp and face-to-face media due to the pandemic conditions that still lasted until 
 June 2020. However, the board felt that the SOP helps them in facilitating loan activities.

ANALYSIS OF PRICE FLUCTUATION FOR CEREALS IN MAIDUGURI METROPOLITANT COUNCIL, BORNO STATE, NIGERIA

The study analyzed the price fluctuation of cereals in Maiduguri Metropolis of Borno State, Nigeria. The data were collected through the use of questionnaire administered to 120 respondents. Frequency distribution and percentages were used to analyze the data. The results of the study showed that 70.8% of the cereal marketers were male while 29.2% were female. The percentage of the marketers that were married was 6.6%, while 35% were single. The family size analysis revealed that 50% of the marketers had family size above 10 persons and 16.7% less than five. Findings on the source of initial capital outlay showed that 50% got their initial capital from friends and 20.8% from personal saving. The result also showed that 75% of the marketers were retailers and 25% were wholesaler. On the analysis of causes of price variation, the result revealed that annual variability in production and speculative activities of middlemen were indicated by 58.3% each of the respondents, while poor storage of cereal had 16.7%. It indicated that sorghum had degree of price fluctuation of 9.8% while millet had 8.6%. Analysis of the effect of price fluctuation showed that inflation was indicated by 62.5% of the respondent, while high cost of labour had 16.7%. About 54% of the marketers had their commodities for future sale at the time of harvest in order to cope with price fluctuation, while 20.8% used contract sale to processors and manufacturers as their coping strategies against price fluctuation. It was recommended that women should be supported financially by the government and private organizations through the administration of soft loans and other credit facilities. Also, farmers and marketers should be educated through the extension agents to adopt new methods of cereal production in order to increase the supply of cereal to meet up with the demand.

EFFECT OF MANAGING FINANCIAL RISK ON THE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF LISTED BANKS IN KENYA

Purpose: Management of financial risk is a fundamental management task that commercial banks have incorporated to help shield the commercial banks from losses. However, listed commercial banks have, in recent times gone through challenging times from a performance perspective. This research assessed the correlation between financial results of commercial banks on Nairobi Stock Exchange from a perspective of managing financial risk.Methodology: A descriptive research design was used along with quantitative research data by collecting panel data for the period 2009-2018 from annual supervision of banks reports along with audited accounts for the concerned entities. Accordingly, an analysis of collected data followed using SPSS 24, which employed descriptive analysis, correlation and regression testing.Results: Results further indicate that credit risk results in (β) = -1.066; liquidity risk (β) = -.326 and interest rate risk (β) =.603 changes on the banks financial results. Research findings are expected to enhance policy and practice within the banking industry in Kenya.Contribution of Study: To the regulator the study advocates for new guidelines to ensure that banks have better monitoring mechanisms to avoid breaching their capital reserve requirements. Listed banks should design more robust credit analysis policies and loan administration. This will allow the commercial banks to expand their lending activities to individuals and small businesses overcoming the challenges experienced due to the interest rate caps.

Banks Intermediation and Stock Prices of Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria: VECM and Variance Decomposition Approach

This study adopts the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and the variance decomposition techniques in testing the financial acceleration theory in banks intermediation. The bank intermediation variable is categorized into variable deposit mobilization, loan administration, delegated monitoring and risk diversification. Using cointegration analysis and quarterly secondary data between 2009 and 2016, this study assessed the short and long run influence of the categorized bank activities on their stock prices. The results indicate that banks intermediation exact influence on both the short and long run stock prices of DMBs in Nigeria as the ECM (-0.1420) result showed a significant speed of adjustment towards equilibrium while the overall model fitness showed that there is a long run causality running from banks intermediation measures and stock prices. Similarly, the result of the variance decomposition of stock prices shocks indicate that over time a significantly increasing proportion of stock prices is explained by loans and capital (delegated monitoring).

THE ROLE OF LOCAL CREDIT INSTITUTIONS (LPD) IN DISTRIBUTING AGRICULTURAL CREDIT IN PENATIH VILLAGE, DISTRICT OF EAST DENPASAR, DENPASAR CITY

Local credit institution (LPD) is financial enterprise that owned by the village to carry out business activities in that village and or the villagers. In its development, LPD has a imperative role that is not far from the goal of establishing LPD its sel, viz. Encouraging the development o rural economic throughraising the unds, distribute the loan for the community, create equal opportunities for business activities and employment opportunities for villagers.This study aims to determine characteristics of the agricultural debtor in LPD Desa Adat Penatih, the criteria for amount of agricultural credit distributed in LPD Desa Adat Penatih, the procedure for distributing agricultural credit in LPD Desa Adat Penatih and also the interference in repayment of credit in LPD Desa Adat Penatih. The location of this study were selected purposively. Data used in this study is qualitative data and quantitative data.The result of the study showed that the characteristics of the agricultural debtor in the LPD Desa Adat Penatih are seen from age and gender, the number of family dependents, the level of education, the criteria for amount loan and the business fields. The amount of agricultural credit distributed in LPD Desa Adat Penatih base of the collateral value for collateral provided by debtor. The procedure for distributing agricultural credit in LPD Desa Adat Penatih starts by of the loan application, analysis or assessment of credit, credit decision, disbursement and loan administration. There is no interference to LPD Desa Adat Penatih in repayment of agriculture credit. Both in terms of repayment period and credit collectibility.

A Boosted Decision Tree Model for Predicting Loan Default in P2P Lending Communities

Loan Default Prediction For Social Lending Is An Emerging Area Of Research In Predictive Analytics. The Need For Large Amount Of Data And Few Available Studies In The Current Loan Default Prediction Models For Social Lending Suggest That Other Viable And Easily Implementable Models Should Be Investigated And Developed. In View Of This, This Study Developed A Data Mining Model For Predicting Loan Default Among Social Lending Patrons, Specifically The Small Business Owners, Using Boosted Decision Tree Model. The United States Small Business Administration (Usba) Publicly-Available Loan Administration Dataset Of 27 Features And 899164 Data Instances Was Used In 80:20 Ratios For The Training And Testing Of The Model. 16 Data Features Were Finally Used As Predictors After Data Cleaning And Feature Engineering. The Gradient Boosting Decision Tree Classifier Recorded 99% Accuracy Compared To The Basic Decision Tree Classifier Of 98%. The Model Is Further Evaluated With (A) Receiver Operating Characteristics (Roc) And Area Under Curve (Auc), (B) Cumulative Accuracy Profile (Cap), And (C) Cumulative Accuracy Profile (Cap) Under Auc. Each Of These Model Performance Evaluation Metrics, Especially Roc-Auc, Showed The Relationship Between The True Positives And False Positives That Implies The Model Is A Good Fit.

Determinants of loan repayment by beneficiary farmers under the integrated farmers scheme in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria

This study examined determinants of loan repayment by beneficiary farmers under the Integrated Farmers Scheme (IFS) in AkwaIbom State of Nigeria. Most government and other institutional funding effort to agricultural sector have been fraught with difficulties especially defaulting on loan contract. The specific objectives are: assess the factors that affect loan repayment among the beneficiaries, examine the level of loan repayment performance and to ascertain the factors that influence loan repayment of the beneficiaries in the study area.Primary data used for the study were collected with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire. Simple random sampling was used to select the eighty four respondents. Data collected were analyzed using mean, percentages and Ordinary Least Square. Result shows that 89.23% of beneficiaries indulged in diversion of loan to family uses. Loan performance indices estimated shows that only 25.94% of borrowed amount was repaid as at when due. This situation indicated a low repayment performance. Empirical result shows that loan from other sources, farming experience, amount of money borrowed and total income were the significant factors that influenced loan repayment. It was concluded that low repayment limited effective loan administration in the study area. It was recommended that regular monitoring by lender should be heightened to ensure prompt repayment. Farmers should be encouraged by the funding agency to repay loan promptly, this could be through education, persuasion and at times necessary threatening with Police arrest and exclusion from further funding.Keywords: Loan Repayment, Farmer Beneficiary, Integrated Farmers Scheme, Determinants

Fraud prediction in bank loan administration using decision tree

The rate at which banks looses funds to loan beneficiaries due to loan default is alarming. This trend has led to the closure of many banks, potential beneficiaries deprived of access to loan; and many workers losing their jobs in the banks and other sectors. This work uses past loan records based on the employment of machine learning to predict fraud in bank loan administration and subsequently avoid loan default that manual scrutiny by a credit officer would not have discovered. However, such hidden patterns are revealed by machine learning. Statistical and conventional approaches in this direction are restricted in their accuracy capabilities. With a large volume and variety of data, credit history judgement by man is inefficient; case-based, analogy-based reasoning and statistical approaches have been employed but the 21st century fraudulent attempts cannot be discovered by these approaches, hence; the machine learning approach using the decision tree method to predict fraud and it delivers an accuracy of 75.9 percent.

A Naive Bayes approach to fraud prediction in loan default

The essence of granting loans to individuals and corporate beneficiaries is to boost the economy while the lenders make profit from the interest that accrues to the lending. However, due to non-compliance to basic rules, fraud is prevalent in credit administration and traditional methods of detecting fraud have failed. Furthermore, they are time-consuming and less accurate. This work uses a supervised machine learning approach, specifically the Naïve Bayes to predict fraudulent practices in loan administration based on training and testing of labeled dataset. Previous works either predict credit worthiness or detect loan fraud but not predicting fraud in credit default. The approach employed in this work yielded 78 % accuracy.

What Maria Exposed to Us

First paragraph: It has been nearly two years since Hurricane Maria unleased her fury on Puerto Rico, Dominica, and the U.S Virgin Islands in September 2017. Hurricane Maria caused an estimated US$94 billion in damages, with the majority of those damages reported in Puerto Rico (Mercy Corps, 2019). It is estimated that 2,975 Puerto Ricans lost their lives because of the hurricane, though the eventual death toll may have reached 4,000 (Mercy Corps, 2019). When Maria hit, the islands were still in recovery from Hurricane Irma, which had struck the north side of the main island just days before. The entirety of the archipelago, all 3.4 million resi­dents, lost power after Maria, and it was estimated that Puerto Ricans, on average, went 84 days without power, 68 days without water, and 41 days without cellular phone service (Mercy Corps, 2019). Overnight, Puerto Rico became discon­nected from the outside world. Prior to the 2017 hurricanes, Puerto Rico was already grappling with widespread poverty and a crumbling infrastructure after years of disinvestment and structural adjust­ment.[1] These inequalities left Puerto Ricans with a host of challenges related to their wellbeing. For instance, according to the National Resources Defense Council, in 2015, 99.5% of Puerto Ricans were served by community water systems that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act (NRDC, 2017). Before Maria, 1.5 million Puerto Ricans were food insecure, with children experiencing food insecurity at a rate of 56%—triple the U.S. average (Bread for the World, 2019). [1] Structural adjustment refers to the delivery and administration of loans to states or regions in economic crisis, often loaned by institutions like the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. These loans are given on the condition of economic reforms. Structural adjustment is widely critiqued as a mechanism that deepens poverty and increases dependency. See the press release for this article.

Financing Higher Education through Student Loans: An Examination of Student Loan Take up and the Debt Burden among Ghanaian Tertiary Students

This article examines the factors influencing demand for student loans from Ghana’s Student Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) and the loan debt burden at completion using a sample of 400 final-year students in two higher education institutions in the country’s Upper West Region. The results show that both the loan take up rate and the loan debt burden among students are relatively low. Demand for student loans and the loan debt burden is modelled as probit and Tobit (left censored), respectively. The results reveal that student age, household size, parents’ occupation, salary, number of income sources, and the length of the study programme play a significant role in explaining demand for student loans and the loan debt burden at completion among tertiary students. These socio-economic factors should thus inform the design and administration of student loans.