This Statistics in Brief first examines merit aid and other non-need-based aid from all sources and then focuses on two sources of merit aid widely cited in empirical and policy-oriented literature--postsecondary institutions and states--examining how much merit aid students received and the characteristics of students who received it. It tracks…

Drawing upon data from the 2007-08 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:08), a nationally representative survey of all postsecondary students, this Statistics in Brief offers an overview of the enrollment characteristics of graduate and first-professional students, when they started their programs, how they combined school and work, the…

The Department of Education is vitally interested in whether the financial incentives provided by the grants affect student behavior. That is, will the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACGs) induce more economically disadvantaged high school students to complete a rigorous high school program and enroll and succeed in postsecondary education? Will…

The "Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005" created two new grant programs for undergraduates: the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) program and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (National SMART) Grant program. The ACG program is intended to encourage students to take challenging courses in high school and thus…

This report examines the participation of older undergraduates, above age 24, in postsecondary education using data from the 1989-90 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:90) and the 1990-92 Beginning Postsecondary Student Longitudinal Study (BPS:90/92). It profiles older undergraduates and compares them with younger undergraduates with…

In 1999-2000, approximately 2.7 million students were enrolled in graduate and first-professional programs in colleges and universities in the United States. Using data from the 1999-2000 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:2000), this report profiles students in various degree programs and examines how they paid for their education,…

This report examines the postsecondary financing strategies of undergraduates, describing how they combine work, borrowing, and attendance to support their postsecondary enrollment and examines the relationship between various financing strategies and students' persistence in postsecondary education. The report uses data from the 1992-93 National…

This report uses the 2003-04 NPSAS data to describe the characteristics of graduate and first professional students and how they finance their education, with a section focusing on students who attend exclusively part time. The report also includes a compendium of tables providing detailed data on student and enrollment characteristics, types of…

This report uses data from the 1995-96 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study to describe the financing of graduate and first-professional education. It begins with a series of profiles of students in selected graduate and first-professional programs, followed by a compendium of tables that provide detailed data on student characteristics, types…

This report uses data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study and the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study to examine how low income undergraduates (with family incomes below 125 percent of the federally established poverty threshold) finance their postsecondary education, focusing on the importance of financial aid. The…

Using data from the 1986-87 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), this statistical report profiles undergraduate students enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the United States. NPSAS data were supplemented with data from other sources, particularly, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and High School and Beyond…

This booklet summarizes findings from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, concerning graduate and first-professional students. The booklet's introduction indicates that, of the 2.8 million postsecondary students enrolled in 1995-96, 56 percent were enrolled in master's degree programs, 12 percent in doctoral programs, 12 percent in…

This report is a special analysis that is republished from the "Condition of Education 2004" in a booklet form. The analysis examines changes undergraduate student aid between 1989-90 and 1999-2000, focusing on dependent students who were enrolled full time for the full academic year. This analysis examines changes in student financing of…

This study uses data from the 1992-93 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study to describe the financing of graduate and first-professional education. It begins with an essay on student borrowing that briefly profiles graduate and first-professional students and then examines the role of borrowing in financing graduate and first-professional…

As debate continues over who should get what kinds of aid to attend college, it is important to know what students and their families are actually paying for college, where the money is coming from, and how students' methods of paying vary with their family income and the type of institution they attend. To inform these debates, this report uses…