Rural students graduate from high school at higher rates but go to college at lower rate than their urban and suburban peers. To take on the educational attainment challenge for rural students, we need to know more about postsecondary encouragement programs. This study examined a pilot postsecondary encouragement program in 11 rural high schools…

The college enrollment landscape has changed vastly in the last couple of decades. As such, regional public universities (RPUs) have had to become increasingly strategic in how they recruit new students to attend their institutions. For example, total college enrollment has declined from 2010 to 2017, and this population continues to become more…

The purpose of this chapter is to review the literature related to Hispanic-serving institutions and financial aid. Based on this review, a framework for guiding HSIs that considers the role of financial aid in meeting the needs of Latino/a students is suggested.

Over 35 years of retention theory and literature have acknowledged the importance of institutional and student profiles in accounting for cross-sectional differences in retention and completion rates between types of colleges and universities. The first "P" within a 4 Ps framework of student retention--"profile"--recognizes that an institution's…

This chapter presents findings from two recent Pell Institute studies, which explored the characteristics and experiences of low-income, first-generation community college transfer students in Texas and two-year and four-year institutional approaches to facilitating transfer student degree completion. Specifically, the first study asked the…

The many changes that have taken place in the college student financial aid system in recent years have necessitated a series of operational and programmatic adjustments for financial aid administrators and their offices. Changes include increased aid availability, complexity of student circumstances, and regulation. Even greater program…

Colleges can and should do much to improve the management of financial aid offices in a time of reduced funds. Exemplary programs provide a framework for improvement, consisting of two key elements: assessment of office management needs based on the overall campus structural development and good basic management procedures. (Author/MSE)

Before a sound and cost-effective aid program can be developed in a community college, its importance must be understood by the college's administration. Steps to be taken and the aid officer's role in administering and promoting an effective program are outlined. (Author/MSE)

An understanding of the impact of financial aid policies must be an integral part of institutional planning, since aid policies and availability will have a growing effect on student body composition. Current data are incomplete, but priorities implicit in policy will have to be reexamined in the early 1980s. (Author/MSE)

The decisions an institution makes about tuition and student aid constitute its pricing policy and locate its market position. An analytical device called the "aid eligibility frontier" is used to analyze the current pricing system; potential problems are discussed. (Author/MSE)

A review of the conceptual and operational roots of student financial aid gives a brief history of federal programs, provides a statistical profile of federal postsecondary aid since 1970, examines the complexities of need analysis and delivery systems, and outlines policy goals for the 1990s. (MSE)

The process of reauthorization of college student financial aid legislation may be instrumental in reducing the burden and complexity of the financial aid application and need analysis process through simplification. Exempting some students, permitting more to use simplified need analysis, and streamlining reapplication are steps in the right…

Historically, the primary role of financial aid was to increase educational opportunities for those with inadequate resources, yet more recently institutional aid is increasingly becoming based on criteria unrelated to financial need. Various political forces have reinforced the institutional tendency to redirect dollars from the mission of…

Describes how Ohio State University, to confront the nexus between nontraditional students' financial decisions and their academic success in a large-scale setting, has redesigned its financial aid processes, developed minicourses, and brought together financial aid and academic advisers to provide students with one-on-one attention at the most…

This article urges the financing of higher education by the Tuition Advance Fund, under which any undergraduate degree candidate is advanced money to pay for his or her education. The money is later repaid through a payroll-withholding tax administered by the Internal Revenue Service. It argues that such a plan would be an improvement in both…