While policymakers have proposed adjusting or abandoning the cohort default rate (CDR) as a measure of institutional eligibility for Title IV aid and replacing it with other metrics, such as loan repayment rates, a new report from the Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) argued there is value in working with what is already in place — as long as it’s improved.
Author Lindsay Ahlman, TICAS’ associate director of knowledge and research management, argued policymakers should retain the CDR due to the fact that is a “reliable, well-established, and widely understood measure,” noting that holding institutions accountable for their CDRs “has a long track-record of effectively reducing the risk of student loan default.” Still, she wrote there are weaknesses to the measurement that policymakers must address as they work to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA).
“The [CDR] is a longstanding bipartisan protection against unaffordable debts that has been proven to work. Congress and the Department of Education [ED] should modernize this tool to better protect students and taxpayers from unaffordable debts,” she wrote.