In an era of billions of dollars in outstanding student loan debt, researchers have posited that the U.S. News & World Report rankings continue to be an influential source of information for prospective students, yet these rankings do not include college affordability metrics in their ranking algorithm. As a result, this study performed a…

Four general "fairness criteria" are presented for evaluating student financial aid award rules. Application to current Pell Grant rules indicated violation of two of the criteria. Recommendations include replacing the "percent-of-cost" rule with a "percent-of-need" standard, developing a broader class of rules, and…

This paper presents the findings of the 2008 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). This year, CCSSE zeroes in on high expectations and high support as it presents the results of its 2008 survey. Both are critical to student success: Students do best when expectations are high "and" they receive support that helps them…

Five options to simplify the needs assessment formula for Pell Grants are discussed, along with validation alternatives. Analysis focuses on three main effects of simplifications (data element reduction): the impact on the distribution of total Pell funds, the impact on individuals receiving Pell awards, and the impact of reducing error in the…

Efforts of the Department of Education (ED) to simplify the Pell Grant formula by reducing the number of data elements used to calculate awards (i.e., data element reduction) are evaluated. A framework is developed to assess the critical characteristics of individual data elements, to eliminate elements from the formula, and to develop proposals…

Financial aid and college preparatory programs are designed in part to allow students from low-income families to have the same choices of institutions as those from middle- and upper-income groups. Unfortunately, despite providing more than $100 billion in financial aid and college preparatory assistance, state and federal policy makers have been…

An evaluation of existing and proposed mechanisms to ensure data accuracy for the Pell Grant program is reported, and recommendations for efficient detection of fraud and error in the program are offered. One study objective was to examine the existing system of pre-established criteria (PEC), which are validation criteria that select students on…

The development of the error prone model (EPM) for the 1984-1985 student financial aid validation criteria for Pell Grant recipient selection is discussed, based on a comparison of the 1983-1984 EPM criteria and a newly estimated EPM. Procedures/assumptions on which the new EPM was based include: a sample of 1982-1983 Pell Grant recipients…

The development of a number of error-prone models to select Pell Grant recipients for validation is discussed. The 1983-1984 Pell Grant validation strategy consists of a two-stage approach: selection using Pre-Established Criteria (PEC) followed by selection using Error Prone Modeling (EPM). The database used for model development consists of a…