Daniel A. Collier, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Higher and Adult Education in the Department of Leadership at the University of Memphis and a Research Fellow with the Princeton University Debt Collection Lab.
His research sits at the intersection of higher education finance, public policy, and student well-being, with a particular focus on student loan repayment, administrative burden, tuition-free college policies, basic needs insecurity, and the ways public policy shapes educational and life outcomes.
Dr. Collier is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work combines rigorous quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches—including randomized controlled trials, structural equation modeling, and causal inference—to examine how policy affects students and borrowers across the United States. His recent research has focused on Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), Income-Driven Repayment (IDR), administrative burden, policy uncertainty, financial distress, psychological well-being, and the long-term consequences of student debt on major life decisions such as homeownership, family formation, and career mobility. He also leads and collaborates on large-scale evaluations of basic needs interventions and tuition-free college programs designed to improve student success.
Prior to joining the University of Memphis, Dr. Collier served as a Research Associate at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, where he studied the nationally recognized Kalamazoo Promise tuition-free college scholarship, and previously directed research for Western Michigan University's $1.8 million Success at WMU initiative. He also maintains research affiliations with national policy organizations dedicated to improving higher education finance and consumer financial protection.
Dr. Collier's scholarship has appeared in leading journals including Research in Higher Education, Higher Education Research & Development, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, and the Journal of Student Financial Aid, among others. His research has informed policy discussions surrounding federal student aid, higher education finance, and student loan repayment, and he has delivered invited presentations and briefings for federal and state agencies, governmental organizations, and higher education associations.
Recognized as a national expert on student loan policy, Dr. Collier is frequently sought by journalists to explain developments in higher education finance and federal student aid. His work has been featured by outlets including CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Money, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, NerdWallet, and The Economist, among others.
Dr. Collier serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Student Financial Aidand regularly reviews manuscripts for many of the nation's leading journals in higher education, public policy, and education finance. He is an active member of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), and several other professional organizations.
Across his scholarship, Dr. Collier seeks to generate research that not only advances academic understanding but also directly informs policymakers, institutional leaders, and practitioners working to improve educational opportunity, financial security, and social mobility.