In Ohio, the pandemic has forced students to pause their pursuit of a college degree or abandon their aspirations for higher education all together. The health crisis has accelerated a downward trend in enrollment in public higher education, at least for now, and thrown into sharp relief the barriers that prevent Black and brown students, and…

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), previously named the Veterans Administration, has been providing veterans educational assistance (GI Bill®) benefits since 1944. The benefits have been intended, at various times, to compensate for compulsory service, encourage voluntary service, prevent unemployment, provide equitable benefits to all…

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), previously named the Veterans Administration, has been providing veterans educational assistance (GI Bill®) benefits since 1944. This report describes the GI Bills enacted prior to 2008. Although participation in some programs has ended or is declining, the programs' evolution and provisions inform…

Financial aid makes up the bulk of federal higher education spending, but do those dollars make a difference to needy students? A look at Federal Work-Study and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant allocations show that a disproportionate amount of funding goes to private universities with high tuition and low Federal Pell Grant…

This report provides a detailed look at the sources and distribution of grants, loans, and other student aid for the most recent academic year and how this funding has changed over time. The federal government provided two-thirds of all student aid in 2016-17, but only one-third of the grant aid. In the context of uncertainty about the timing of…

Data on student aid for 2015-16 confirm that the dramatic increases in aid awarded in 2009-10 and 2010-11 were products of extreme economic circumstances, not harbingers of long-run changes in financing for postsecondary education. Both total federal education loans and federal loans per full-time equivalent (FTE) student declined for the fifth…

A quality education is the primary instrument of social and economic mobility in the United States. As open-access institutions, community colleges are the gateway to postsecondary education for millions of Americans. Many of these students would be unable to afford college without federal resources, such as student financial aid and tax credits.…

As the nation slowly emerges from the Great Recession, the patterns of student aid are returning to the paths they were on before the economy crashed. The federal government, which dramatically stepped up its subsidies to students in 2009-10 and 2010-11, continues to play an expanded role, but not a growing role. Students continue to borrow at…

After increasing by 18% (in inflation-adjusted dollars) between 2007-08 and 2010-11, the total amount students borrowed in federal and non-federal education loans declined by 13% between 2010-11 and 2013-14. Growth in full-time equivalent (FTE) postsecondary enrollment of 16% over the first three years, followed by a decline of 4% over the next…

Trends in Student Aid, an annual College Board publication since 1983, is a compendium of detailed, up-to-date information on the funding that is available to help students pay for college. This report documents grant aid from federal and state governments, colleges and universities, employers, and other private sources, as well as loans, tax…

From 2000-2001 to 2010-2011, the total amount of federal financial aid awarded to students under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA) jumped from $64.0 billion to an estimated $169.1 billion, a 10-year increase of 164%. For 2010-2011, the Title IV programs accounted for 72% of the $235 billion in total financial aid received by college…

Certain aspects of the Guaranteed Student Loan, National Direct Student Loan, College Work-Study, and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants programs are reviewed and evaluated. The rules and regulations OE provides to educational and lending institutions for administering the federally sponsored student financial aid programs are found to be…

Congress has begun to rewrite the Higher Education Act, the federal law that authorizes student aid programs like Pell Grants, student loans, Federal Work-Study, TRIO and GEAR UP. This will mark the eighth time that the law has been formally revisited since it was enacted in 1965. It is still early in the process and it is uncertain what the…