IES Predoctoral Program Seminar: Dr. David Musto

The University of Pennsylvania Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Research Methods for Field-based Research in Education, sponsored by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), welcomes Dr. David Musto to our weekly seminar series.

Building a Student Loan App with Students
Presented by Dr. David Musto, Ronald O. Perelman Professor in Finance, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with Jill Bazelon and Emily Lu

High-school students are under-prepared to decide whether to borrow for college because they cannot balance the potential benefits of a loan against the risks it imparts. We are addressing this problem by working with high-school students to build an app that calculates and displays these benefits and risks.  There are other useful student-loan apps already available but they do not address the first-order risks facing Philadelphia high-school students, such as the risks of dropping out, not finishing the intended major, not getting a job that uses the major, losing a job, and so on, and then allow students to weigh these risks against the potential benefits the loans can bring. Building the app with students gives them valuable experience with coding, data collection, statistical techniques, product design and other business disciplines like marketing, and it also helps ensure that the app will engage and help the intended audience. We will discuss our progress over the past year and our short- and long-term goals for the future.

More information
The IES Predoctoral Program’s weekly seminar series connects program fellows and affiliates to scholars and practitioners who engage in educational research and the development of research methods.

Seminars are likely of greatest interest to doctoral students and faculty but are open to all members of the Penn community. If you are interested in attending virtually, please email Melanie Bahti for Zoom information.