Suchergebnisse

Recently, both states and institutions have implemented merit-based financial aid packages to compete for the best students. This analysis explores the adoption of a merit-based aid program at the University of Oregon to assess the impact of merit-based aid in needy-student financial aid packages. Using a unique empirical approach in which the decisions of University of Oregon applicants to apply for federal financial aid and/or enroll at the University of Oregon are modeled jointly, results indicate that $1000 in merit-based aid increases the probability of enrollment by 6.8%. However, while the effect of merit-based aid is found to be positive, the results suggest that the effect may be overstated without controlling for the potential correlation of merit-based aid with the error term.

State school finance formulas moved from tax-driven to student needs, while local community taxation requirements remain. However, no study has examined links between student needs risk factors affecting educational opportunity and local taxation choices. Using regression analyses, this study asked: Are local school district taxation levies related to community, family and economic factors? Using eleven years of financial data to examine Missouri's 1993 tax-rate driven formula this study shows community and family risk factors are related to taxation. Some groups that had prior effects on taxation lost this ability under a tax-rate driven formula. As a result, a state's fixed taxation requirement without regard for local risk can potentially harm constitutionally protected educational opportunity, particularly in new student needs formulas that move away from equalizing local taxation and wealth.

Using new institutional-level data, we assess the impact of changing federal aid levels on institutional-level Pell revenues. Using various policy instruments associated with Pell generosity, we quantify the sensitivity of institutional Pell revenues to the generosity of the Pell Grant program. In general, we find an elastic response of institutional Pell revenues with respect to the maximum Pell award, where other policy instruments associated with Pell generosity are found to have an inelastic or zero impact. We also document significant asymmetries across institutional selectivity, both in magnitude and in terms of which channel accounts for the measured sensitivity—award values directly or institutional enrollment. In the end, exogenous changes in the federal Pell Grant program are found to correlate strongly with changes in the distribution of needy students and revenues across institutional quality.

Prior empirical evidence finds that general enrollment effects of merit-aid programs such as the Georgia Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) scholarship are large and significant, while the effects of need-based aid programs such as the Pell grant are modest and often insignificant. This paper uses new panel data on Pell awards to examine the influence of the Georgia HOPE scholarship on needy-student enrollments. We demonstrate that the introduction of merit aid in Georgia generally improves the college access of needy students and has been leveraged into greater federal Pell assistance. While institution-specific increases in both Pell enrollment and funding are largest at two-year and less selective four-year institutions, the results suggest that Pell students are not crowded out of more selective schools by HOPE's intent to retain the best Georgia high school students, as might have been anticipated.