Impact of Education Loans on Decisions of Employment Location and Timing of Job‐Seeking Initiation: Evidence From Xinjiang, China

This paper analyzes the role of education loans at the national, regional, and individual levels and identifies multiple externality pathways, including promoting educational equity, facilitating labor mobility and employment absorption, cultivating human resources, and supporting socioeconomic development. Based on questionnaires collected from 1073 graduates across 11 universities in Xinjiang, we employ binary logit and ordered logit models to examine the relationship between education loans and employment choices and job‐seeking behaviors. We further explore the impact of these factors on employment mobility and absorption in China′s ethnic regions. The findings are as follows (1) Education loans significantly influence graduates′ decisions of employment location and timing of job‐seeking initiation: Borrowers are more likely to choose to stay in Xinjiang for employment, and their initiation time of job‐seeking behavior is significantly earlier; (2) heterogeneity analysis indicates that loans exert a stronger influence on male students′ job‐seeking initiation time, whereas other factors show no significant difference. As for choices to stay in Xinjiang, there are only some statistically insignificant indications suggesting that Han students, nonXinjiang natives, students from low‐income families, and female students are more likely to remain in Xinjiang; (3) Xinjiang′s employment and entrepreneurship support policies mediate the relationship between education loans and students′ employment choices and job‐seeking behaviors, though their impact on job‐seeking behaviors is relatively minor. The public policy value of education loans can be further recognized and explored. Accordingly, this study recommends enhancing the role of education loans in retaining talent by optimizing loan policy design and improving employment support policies.