| 摘要 | In 2015-2016, the federal government handed out $30 billion in need-based grants to students. The majority of that money (just over $28 billion) came in the form of Pell Grants, a program created in 1972 and designed to help low-income students pay for college. Another $925 million came in the form of Federal Supplementary Education Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), a program through which campuses award grants directly to the neediest students (what’s known as “campus-based aid”).
To be eligible for either need-based grant, a student must fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to demonstrate financial need. The FAFSA collects detailed information on a family’s (or independent student’s) income, assets, family size, and other characteristics to measure how much they are able to contribute, according to federal formulas, to the price of attendance. The resulting number, known as the “expected family contribution” (EFC), is subtracted from the cost of attendance to determine the amount of need-based aid the student is eligible for. Students are eligible to receive the difference between their EFC and the cost of attendance so long as that amount does not exceed the maximum Pell Grant (the “scheduled award”). The scheduled award is then adjusted based on the number of credits they enroll in (the “annual award”). Students from the poorest families, who have an EFC of zero, receive the maximum scheduled award ($5,815 in 2016-2017); the amount of grant aid decreases as the EFC rises until EFC reaches 90% of the maximum grant.
The Department of Education then shares the student’s financial information (from the FAFSA) with any institution that the student authorizes to receive it (as well as state aid agencies in the students’ home state). Institutions can then use this financial information to tailor scholarships and tuition discounts based on students’ ability to pay (known as price discrimination). Pell Grants and institutional aid (scholarships and tuition discounts) reduce the price of attendance such that nearly all low-income students (and many middle and upper-income students) pay a “net price” that is substantially lower than the “sticker” or “published price.” However, despite significant increases in the size of the maximum Pell Grant and the number of Pell recipients, continued increases in tuition have eroded the grant’s purchasing power. Some recent evidence suggests that Pell Grants may have a perverse impact on tuition prices; one study found that institutions reduce institutional aid for students who receive Pell Grants, effectively supplanting rather than supplementing the federal grant aid.
The Pell Grant acts as a portable voucher; students can take it with them to any accredited college to pay for a degree or certificate program. If the grant amount is greater than the cost of tuition, the student can spend the remainder on other qualified expenses (room and board, books, transportation, and so on). The money is disbursed to the campus on a semester-by-semester basis, and students must fill out a new FAFSA each year (the form is now available October 1) if they plan to re-enroll the following year.
Research indicates that need-based grants like Pell encourage low-income students to enroll in college. Collectively, studies of financial aid suggest that an additional $1,000 in grant aid boosts college enrollment by around 4 percentage points. However, the effect of Pell Grants on persistence and completion is less clear. Some studies show that incentive-based grants — where students receive additional grant aid conditional on achieving academic benchmarks — have positive effects on academic outcomes. Studies of pure grants (without academic benchmarks) show mixed effects on degree completion. Experimental or quasi-experimental studies of grant programs in Wisconsin and Florida found that additional grant aid (beyond the Pell Grant) increased persistence and completion rates by a sizable margin. However, a study of the Gates Millennium Scholarship program found no evidence that scholarship money increased persistence or completion compared to those who did not receive a scholarship.
To view the full chapter, visit: https://nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/doclib/HigherEd_Ch1_Kelly.pdf |
