Supplement grant aid with academic or social supports, favor need-based over merit-only allocation, and avoid front-loading aid¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (5 for) · 1 study (1 quant-synthesis), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article's policy implications recommend three implementable moves for institutions, states, and funders: supplement grant aid with additional treatments, since "supplementing grant aid with additional treatments, such as academic or social supports, will improve impacts"; shift dollars from merit-based toward need-based awards, because merit aid shows lower persistence and completion impacts; and reconsider front-loading, since withdrawing aid after the first year "may come at the cost of persistence" given that continued aid positively affects year-to-year persistence. These follow directly from the meta-analysis's moderator and dose findings.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Requires grant aid programs already serving enrolled postsecondary students, with capacity to add advising, peer, or academic supports and to structure eligibility and renewal across years

Constraints¶

• The persistence effect magnitude is small relative to enrollment effects; merit-only null findings rest on sizable standard errors; dose estimates assume a linear aid-impact relationship

Target Learners¶

• postsecondary students, particularly grant-eligible and need-based aid recipients

Target Learning Goals¶

• year-to-year persistence and on-time or delayed degree completion

Claims¶

• Grant aid programs bundling additional academic or social supports show larger persistence and completion effects than aid alone [+M]
• Need-based grant aid improves persistence and completion while merit-only aid shows no detectable effect on these outcomes [+M]
• Grant aid increases degree completion, raising on-time completion by 2.4 and delayed completion by 2.5 percentage points in U.S. causal studies [+M]
• Grant aid increases postsecondary persistence, raising within-year persistence by 3.2 and year-to-year persistence by 1.8 percentage points in U.S. causal studies [+M]
• An additional $1,000 of grant aid improves year-to-year persistence by a statistically significant 1.2 percentage points, with smaller statistically insignificant effects on degree completion [+M]

Related Strategies¶

• Ten state policy recommendations for student-centered financial aid systems

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Nguyen, T.D., Kramer, J.W., & Evans, B.J. (2018). The Effects of Grant Aid on Student Persistence and Degree Attainment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence (CEPA Working Paper No. 18-04). Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis. http://cepa.stanford.edu/wp18-04