The Federal Work-Study (FWS) program is an integral part of the federal financial aid plan in the United State since 1964 providing employment opportunities, financial assistance, and opportunities to improve career readiness to over 675,000 students annually. However, little investigation has been completed into the effects of participating in…

Although student loan debt has been rigorously studied over the past several decades, scant research has investigated how institutions of higher education communicate debt to current and former student borrowers. As COVID-19 forced the United States Department of Education to cancel the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgement as part of a student's…

People who are impacted by the criminal justice system ("system-impacted") face barriers when seeking financial aid to pay for college. Between the late 1960s and the early 2000s, Congress created laws that prohibited incarcerated students and students with certain criminal convictions from receiving federal grants and loans. This paper…

Research has shown that student loan borrowers in repayment exhibit physical and mental health problems. These can be exacerbated by and contribute to health-related financial hardship. We use the 2015 U.S. National Financial Capability Study to examine the likelihood of having past due medical bills and of avoiding health care services by not…

Education tax credits provide federal financial aid to a wide expanse of American taxpayers; however, little research or analysis has been done on these costly programs. There has been little evidence of its link to college enrollment growth. This descriptive paper outlines the establishment of education tax credits, their original intent, and the…

We analyze changes in financial aid and student enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that occurred after the U.S. Department of Education increased the credit history requirements necessary to obtain Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students (PLUS). We use institution-level data to examine financial aid and enrollment…

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…

Data from all 2010-2011 undergraduate students, who received a Pell Grant disbursement at Kentucky's two-year and four-year public institutions, were used to simulate the eligibility changes to the Pell Grant program in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 and from the termination of year-round Pell. Specifically, these changes: a) the…

Completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the first and most important step for students to receive their portion of the billions of grant aid dollars disbursed in federal student financial aid; however, every year many low income and community college students fail to complete the FAFSA. Over the past twenty years,…

One institution's several years' experience with the Department of Education's Quality Control Project, which is attempting to ascertain the value of student financial-aid application-verification efforts, is summarized and commented on. (Author/MSE)

Since the Guaranteed Student Loan Program was changed from a loan of convenience to one of need, slightly fewer students at State University College at Cortland, New York, are borrowing money but they are borrowing slightly more per loan. The author concludes that changes have neither helped nor hurt students. (JT)

A comparison of 1973 gross income reported on the Parents' Confidential Statement (PCS) and the Basic Grant Student Eligibility Report (SER) of students at State University College at Fredonia, New York, revealed patterns of both overestimating and underestimating reported income. Implications for income verification and for application timetables…

Results of a survey of the Western Association of Financial Aid Administrators concerning the prevalence and stringency of validation procedures used in 1985-86 are presented, and the impact and effectiveness of federal verification procedures in offices in that region are discussed. (MSE)

In response to Fischer (HE 527 626), the author considers a proposal to simplify need analysis in Pell grants and other federal need-based student aid as having merit but threatening serious financial harm to many current Pell grant recipients and their institutions. It is argued that focus on budgetary advantages ignores potential dislocations…

In response to Fischer (HE 527 626), the author considers a proposal to simplify and unify need analysis in Pell grants and other federal need-based student aid as appropriate. It is also argued that a single need analysis is needed because the complexity of the existing systems is a barrier to achieving the programs' central goal. (MSE)