A complex ecosystem: a grounded theory approach to understanding student lending in tertiary education
type: CreativeWork
description: ABSTRACT Education, including tertiary education, has a valuable role to play in addressing developmental challenges such as poverty, income inequality, unemployment and gender equality. The challenge to providing tertiary education is financing given competing needs on the national fiscus from other sectors such as basic education, healthcare and energy. Student loans are a solution that have been argued to be a more equitable and sustainable form of financing tertiary education but come with their own challenges. An ecosystem lens to tertiary student lending was applied due to the complex combination of economic and social motivations for education, the significant roles played by participants in both the private and public spheres and the financial resources required by student loan programs. By considering the ecosystem and not just an aspect of the student loan market such as default rates, as commonly done in the literature, the results of this study reflect the intricate decision making and multiple agents involved in student loan programs. A qualitative research method was selected as it suited the research question, the textual form of the data and the complex nature of the relationships under investigation in a student lending ecosystem. Applying the grounded theory approach, core categories were identified by a process of abstraction from a representative sample of documentary sources accessed electronically. The conceptual model developed from the core categories, and the insights gained from the literature review were adapted to a scientific framework in order to create a causal loop diagram in the theory building. The scientific framework used in this theory building process is that of archetypes that describe scientifically established generic structures of systems and the associated patterns of behaviour. The final model and theory presented in this study, represents a broad set of stakeholders and highlights the important considerations to improving…
abstract: ABSTRACT Education, including tertiary education, has a valuable role to play in addressing developmental challenges such as poverty, income inequality, unemployment and gender equality. The challenge to providing tertiary education is financing given competing needs on the national fiscus from other sectors such as basic education, healthcare and energy. Student loans are a solution that have been argued to be a more equitable and sustainable form of financing tertiary education but come with their own challenges. An ecosystem lens to tertiary student lending was applied due to the complex combination of economic and social motivations for education, the significant roles played by participants in both the private and public spheres and the financial resources required by student loan programs. By considering the ecosystem and not just an aspect of the student loan market such as default rates, as commonly done in the literature, the results of this study reflect the intricate decision making and multiple agents involved in student loan programs. A qualitative research method was selected as it suited the research question, the textual form of the data and the complex nature of the relationships under investigation in a student lending ecosystem. Applying the grounded theory approach, core categories were identified by a process of abstraction from a representative sample of documentary sources accessed electronically. The conceptual model developed from the core categories, and the insights gained from the literature review were adapted to a scientific framework in order to create a causal loop diagram in the theory building. The scientific framework used in this theory building process is that of archetypes that describe scientifically established generic structures of systems and the associated patterns of behaviour. The final model and theory presented in this study, represents a broad set of stakeholders and highlights the important considerations to improving…
author: Muramba, Faith
language: en
keywords: Development Finance
date published: 2020
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:22:38Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Graduate School of Business (GSB)

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41984