Document Author: Drew M. Anderson

Buying time: Financial aid allows college students to work less while enrolled (2024)

Many empirical studies have established that financial aid improves college attainment. Few have been able to test why. This study used administrative records of employment and earnings to get a more complete picture of students’ finances during college and test one potential mechanism, that financial aid buys students time by allowing them to work less in off-campus jobs. We studied recipients of New Jersey’s need-based Tuition Aid Grant (TAG). We used the eligibility cutoffs of TAG to identify groups of otherwise similar students who received sharply different amounts of aid. A prior study took the same approach and found that TAG increased on-time graduation rates from public universities. At these schools, 80% of TAG recipients worked at some point during the year. We found that when students received additional aid, on average they reduced earnings dollar for dollar.

Seeking STEM: The Causal Impact of Need-Based Grant Aid on Undergraduates’ Field of Study (2023)

ABSTRACT
Increasing the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees is a national priority and one way to promote the socioeconomic mobility of students from low-income families. Prior research examining why students do not complete STEM majors often points to students’ lack of academic preparation, preferences for non-STEM majors, or lack of information about the value of STEM. This paper uses a randomized experiment to investigate an alternative explanation, that some students lack the financial resources to succeed in demanding majors. In a control group of university students from low-income families, 18.6% of students had declared a STEM major by their third year of college. In a treatment group who were offered additional need-based grant aid upon entering college, 26.5% of students declared a STEM major. Among students who had graduated within six years after entering college, 12.2% of control group graduates had earned a STEM degree compared to 20.2% of treatment group students. Need-based grants thus appear to have the potential to increase the share of low-income students studying and earning degrees in STEM.

Experimental Evidence on the Impacts of Need-Based Financial Aid: Longitudinal Assessment of the Wisconsin Scholars Grant (2020)

We conduct the first long-term experimental evaluation of a need-based financial aid program, the privately funded Wisconsin Scholars Grant. Over multiple cohorts, the program failed to increase degree completion and graduate school enrollment up to 10 years after matriculation. The program did reduce time-to-degree for some students and modestly increased the number of STEM degrees earned. The lack of robust effects raises important questions about the conditions necessary for financial aid to benefit students.