A Typology of State Merit Aid Programs for Community College Students

• In Event: Investigating the Complexities of State and Federal Financial Aid Systems

Abstract

State-funded financial aid has increasingly used merit-based criteria to distribute its scholarships and grants, and the dominant conversation on merit-aid programs centers on students attending four-year colleges and universities. Using a novel dataset capturing a variety of features of state-funded merit-aid programs for all adopted states in the nation between 2003 and 2021, our study focuses on the characteristics of merit-aid programs for community college students. The findings indicate that there are three types of merit-aid programs for community college students: the balanced programs, the community college exclusion programs, and the community college targeted programs. We discuss the characteristics of these three programs and provide implications for designing merit-aid programs to better support community college students and promote educational equity.

Authors

• Xiaodan Hu, Northern Illinois University
  Presenting Author

• Frank Fernandez, University of Florida
  Presenting Author

• Yuxi Qiu, Florida International University
  Presenting Author

• Matt Capaldi, University of Florida
  Presenting Author