Data from all 2010-2011 undergraduate students, who received a Pell Grant disbursement at Kentucky's two-year and four-year public institutions, were used to simulate the eligibility changes to the Pell Grant program in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 and from the termination of year-round Pell. Specifically, these changes: a) the…

Tuition assistance offered by employers is an understudied area of financial aid research. The purpose of this study is to compare the demographic, socioeconomic, academic and financial aid characteristics of college students who receive employer-sponsored financial aid with students who receive traditional financial aid (institutional, state, or…

Using a data set that augments a student survey with administrative data from the Iowa State University Office of Financial Aid, the authors posed two questions: Do students know whether they have student loans? Do students know how much they owe on outstanding student loans? We used logistic and ordered logit regressions to answer these…

Using the 2007-2008 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, this study tested positively the hypothesis that college students are either likely to acquire debt above the national median or work more than 30 hours a week in order to graduate from a four year degree within six years. These results resonate with the theory of academic capitalism,…

Despite the substantial size of the population, relatively little research has focused on the status and experiences of undergraduate parents. Using descriptive analyses of data from the NPSAS:04, this study provides a starting point for campus administrators, public policymakers, and educational researchers who seek to identify ways to better…

This article uses data from the 2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study to provide insight about the range of tuition discounting practices at public institutions. Specifically, it examines the characteristics of students who receive tuition discounts from public four-year colleges and universities. A binary logistic regression is applied to…

College student debt and loan default are growing concerns in the United States. For each U.S. institution, the federal government is now reporting a cohort default rate, which is the percent of students who defaulted on their loan, averaged over a three-year period. Previous studies have amply shown that student characteristics are strongly…

The authors examine the factors that influence the college choice process of two-year college students and explore the effect these variables have on the two-year/four-year college choice dichotomy, using the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) of 1995-96 and the Beginning Postsecondary (BPS) component of that survey. This study…

Federal higher education policy has shifted over the past few decades from grants to loans as the primary means for providing access to postsecondary education for low- and moderate-income families. With this shift, policy makers have begun tracking student loan default rates as a key indicator of the efficacy of student loan programs. This effort…

The Kentucky Education Excellence Scholarship (KEES) is a merit-based scholarship program intended to increase college access, long-term academic commitment, and retention of top students within the state. KEES uses a heavily graduated award structure and both high school grade point average and standardized test scores to establish award amounts.…

Recent research on loan effects on student borrowers has focused on pre-college and post college behavior, neglecting the loan effects during the within-college period. This study integrated the student retention models and financial nexus model to investigate the effects of different kinds of financial aid on degree attainment of undergraduates…

Using institutional data, this paper presents a model to enable researchers and enrollment managers to assess the effectiveness of financial aid packaging policies in light of student characteristics and institutional market position. The model uses discriminant analysis and a series of hypothetical financial aid award scenarios to predict the…

This study examined the use of education tax credits at four community colleges using data from the Federal Quality Assurance Program in 1998, the first year of the HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credit (LLTC). Preliminary estimates indicated that the two tax credits were expected to primarily benefit middle-income tax filers with…

For several decades, education has assumed a vital role in this country's economic, social, and political development, catapulting less advantaged citizens into higher social classes and the political process. A testament to education's fundamental importance in our society are the numerous programs designed during the 1960s to eliminate the…

Linked a database of California student borrowers with background financial and demographic information and post-college employment data to examine factors that predict default for borrowers in the federal Family Education Loan program. Found that background demographic and financial characteristics, leaving school without a degree, having low…