Fifty-one colleges and universities are participating in a pilot program to test the effectiveness of adding more counseling sessions and using a variety of tools to help students manage their debt, the Education Department announced Thursday. Schools can employ the counseling services of outside groups, develop their own platforms or use the department’s loan counseling tools.

“It’s important for students to make good decisions about their student loan borrowing, but many lack timely and relevant information about financial aid to guide their borrowing decisions each year,” Ted Mitchell, undersecretary of education, said on a call with reporters Thursday.

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Nearly three-quarters of the schools selected for the pilot program are public two-year institutions, while 14 are public four-year colleges. New York University is the only private nonprofit school and Monroe College is the only for-profit institution to make the cut. Half of the 100,000 participating students at each institution will receive additional counseling, while the rest will be offered only the standard entrance and exit advising.

Education officials plan to run the experiment for several years, collecting and evaluating data on borrower outcomes to determine what works best. The federal agency is looking for approaches that improve students’ decision-making about borrowing, have an impact on completion, and promote the successful repayment of loans, including reducing delinquencies and defaults.

“We’re dealing with 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds who typically don’t understands financial responsibility because that’s something we expect parents to do, but with my population of students it is a cycle we have to break,” said Cynthia Jackson Hammond, president of Central State University in Ohio, one of the participating schools.

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Hammond said 82 percent of students at Central State receive Pell grants, a form of federal financial aid for families typically earning less than $60,000 a year, and many have no financial support from their parents. The school already incorporates financial literacy in freshman seminars, and has noticed increased interest from students in learning more about loan repayment, she said.

“If we can address problems a lot earlier, more often, give students the necessary tools to make the right decision, then we should see a reduction in the amount of debt,” Hammond said.

Colleges and universities have complained that federal rules create a lot of uncertainty in loan counseling. Guidance released last year by the Education Department said schools cannot force students to receive additional advisement, but doesn’t explicitly bar colleges from recommending borrowing amounts or other specific forms of counseling. Schools have asked Congress for permission to set loan limits for certain academic programs, degrees or student populations, but the effort has stalled.

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“Schools need the authority to make data-driven decisions to help specific cohorts of borrowers on campus,” said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a chief proponent of loan limits. “Without the authority to limit borrowing in specific circumstances, like only allowing part-time students to borrow at part-time rates, schools will never be in a position to fully constrain the continued growth in student loan indebtedness.”

Students can borrow the full amount of aid for which they are eligible, even if they don’t need the money to cover tuition and fees. Advocacy groups have pointed out that low-income students often borrow the maximum amount allowed to cover living and transportation expenses, but schools worry that taking on added debt will prove detrimental in the long run. Colleges are also mindful of borrowing behavior because they can lose access to federal loans and grants if too many students default on their debt.

At Tallahassee Community College in Florida, President James Murdaugh said the school is working with a third-party service to help students who are in jeopardy of defaulting on their loans. The college, one of the 51 schools selected for the experimental pilot, also has partnered with local financial institutions to educate students about money management.

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“We serve many first-generation students who have little experience borrowing money, and we know that the decisions they make about funding their education will linger long after they leave our institution,” Murdaugh said. “We’re committed to reducing the number of those who default on their loans, and look at this [pilot] as a tremendous opportunity to do that.”