There has been a lot of recent research showing that that the stress of poverty limits the amount of “cognitive bandwidth” that people may have – in other words, poverty causes less self-control, for example, than the other way around (see The Best Resources Showing Social Emotional Learning Isn’t Enough).

A new study finds that being saddled with debt can have the same negative impact (see Debt relief improves psychological and cognitive function, enabling better decision-making).

Though we can’t provide debt relief to our students and their families, there still are some actions we can take to help minimize this reduction of “cognitive bandwidth” (see “How Income Affects The Brain” & What We Can Do About It).