In this paper, we examine disability funding in the context of a schooling market. By drawing on interviews with public school principals, we consider their experiences in competing for disability and inclusion funding in public schools. Public school principals are engaging in competitive applications from the state government to fund a range of…

Government programs impose eligibility requirements to balance the goals of improving welfare while minimizing waste. We study the impact of eligibility monitoring in the context of Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) submissions, where students may be subject to "verification" requirements that require them to confirm…

Administrative burden, or the frictions individuals experience in accessing public programs, has implications for whether and which eligible individuals receive aid. While prior research documents barriers to accessing federal financial aid, less is known about the extent to which state aid programs impose administrative burden, how administrative…

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the primary gatekeeper to secure financial aid for college. The federal government instituted two changes to the process in 2017, commonly known as "prior-prior year" FAFSA: (1) an earlier start date that lengthens the filing period and (2) the ability to use completed taxes from…

The "Student FAFSA Completion Report" (2024) is submitted pursuant to Education Article § 7-212, Annotated Code of Maryland, which requires the Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center to annually produce an annual report, on or before December 15th of each year, beginning in 2023 and ending in 2028, on the submission and…

Financial aid offers are the primary tool colleges and universities use to communicate eligibility for federal, state, and institutional financial aid programs to their prospective and current students. Institutions of higher education develop their own financial aid offers, taking into account many factors, including the format of the educational…

For years, financial aid administrators and others have debated the nature and structure of need analysis. As it developed, need analysis was based on commonly accepted definitions and basic principles of economics. Beyond the fundamentals of need analysis, there also developed expertise about exercising professional judgment (PJ) in reviewing…

This article is the first of a three-part series based on the book, Basic Guide to Financial Aid. The contents within are abridged from the publication, with additional emphasis on the impact federal student aid administration has on non-financial aid professionals in higher education today. It should be noted that this information is not…

Paying for college is often a family affair, with both parents and students contributing. We study the effects of college on family finances using administrative data on the universe of federal aid applicants in California linked to credit records. We provide the first comprehensive analysis of how both students and their parents use debt with…

This study found that the MATC Promise increased college attainment by encouraging Milwaukee high school students to access state and federal aid, and to consider matriculating to their local two-year college. The MATC Promise exemplifies the last-dollar model of college aid. If seniors at Milwaukee area public high schools complete academic…

The Minnesota State Grant program is a need-based financial aid program that assists Minnesota resident undergraduates attending public and private postsecondary institutions in Minnesota, providing choice and access for the students to attend the institutions that best meet their needs. This report contains data on the number of awards and award…

This report from the Student Transitions Project (STP) features selected research findings on the transitions of high school graduates into British Columbia (B.C.) public, B.C. private and non-B.C. post-secondary institutions. This study was enabled by a linkage of encrypted Personal Education Numbers (PENs) between the STP2024 enrollment table to…

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the application that postsecondary students complete to receive federal grants, work-study, and loans; as well as some state and institutional grants, and private financial aid. In 2019-2020, 17.7 million undergraduates filed a FAFSA and in 2021-2022, full-time equivalent students received an…

The U.S. Government Accountability office (GAO) recently released a report presenting new data on eligibility and uptake for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) among college students with low incomes. The report paints a stark picture that, despite high levels of food insecurity among college students, few are receiving SNAP…

International scholarships are an established mode of aid distribution for many donor countries and a life-changing educational opportunity for recipients from the global South. This article draws upon ethnographic field research centred on Dili, Timor-Leste, focussing on case studies of a scholarship applicant, a scholar, and an alumnus. It…