Higher education is fast becoming indispensable to an individual's economic self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, the cost of higher education is going up. In recent years, college tuition costs have risen faster than both the rate of inflation and median family income. Government funding for higher education has not kept up with these rising costs. As government support declines, students are paying more and more of the total cost of higher education. And since few students have the discretionary income to pay tuition costs as they come due, they have financed the cost of higher education with federally guaranteed student loans. This book is an effort to chronicle the burgeoning role of student loans in higher education finance and to identify the policy issues that are raised by this development.