History Behind College Student Loans

The Lumina Foundation, the nation’s largest private foundation focused solely on increasing Americans’ success in higher education, is continuing their historical video tour of Federal Student Aid. Their multi-part series walks through the history of how federal aid came into existence and what it means for us today.

According to Lumina, the US was influenced by the Soviet Union launch of Sputnik in 1957, the first federal loan program, the National Defense Student Loan (NDSL), was created in 1958 by the National Defense Education Act emphasizing science, mathematics, and engineering fields.

You May Also be Interested in our earlier posts:

Part 1: History of Federal Student Aid

Part 2: Where Financial Aid Began

Part 3: Pell Grants: Building Blocks of Student Based Aid