Making the Grade: The Academic Side of College Life Among Financial Aid Recipients

• In Event: The Intersection of State Policy and Student Attainment

Abstract

Postsecondary leaders and policy-makers have turned to performance-based aid programs as one way reduce time to degree completion and improve completion rates among low income students. By tying aid eligibility to minimum academic performance standards in college, it is thought that greater academic commitment can be promoted. Underlying these programs is the untested assumption that students who rely on aid need incentives because they lack academic focus and care insufficiently about academic performance. We present evidence from a mixed-methods study of federal Pell Grant recipients which directly challenges this assumption. Further, we show that tying aid to performance standards may unintentionally induce students to reduce enrollment intensity and thereby extend time to degree in an effort to “make the grade.”

Authors

• Peter Miles Kinsley, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Sara Goldrick-Rab, University of Wisconsin Madison