This study explores the relationship between access to higher education and the operation of New York State's programs of student financial aid. The first section presents a summary of the major trends affecting access to higher education. These trends include: increasing manpower needs; increasing college attendance not only of intellectually able students, but also of those less intellectually gifted; growing recognition of the basic right to education for all regardless of income; change and diversification of higher education institutions; and trends in consumer expenditures for higher education. The second section examines aspects of the current New York scene: the state's programs of financial aid, changing patterns of college attendance, the increase in graduate study, the development of 2-year colleges, the Regents College Scholarship Program: the examination, the selection of students to receive the awards, and the procedures for relating the size of the award to family ability to pay, the Scholar Incentive Program geared to college capable students, the students not graduating from high school, institutional considerations and student financial aid, and the relationship between state and federal aid programs. The final section of the report is devoted to conclusions and recommendations. (AF)