Title: 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

Authors: Efosa C. Idemudia; Ralph Ferguson

Addresses: College of Business, Arkansas Tech University Rothwell Hall, Room 448, 106 West O Street Russellville, Arkansas 72801, USA ' Ethics Center, Texas Tech University, Broadway Ave. at Akron Ave., Holden Hall Room 3, Lubbock, TX 79409-1030, USA

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.

Keywords: emergency loans; domestic graduate students; international graduate students; US citizens; non-resident aliens; loan and financial aid theory; emergency loan theory; nonomic theory; education economics; loan payments; monthly payments; economic growth; global challenge; USA; United States; GPA; grade point average; nationality; colleges; degree types; ethnicity; gender; marital status; higher education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2014.067193

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2014 Vol.5 No.4, pp.319 - 331

Received: 04 Oct 2014
Accepted: 16 Oct 2014
Published online: 07 Feb 2015 *

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