Document Author: Sara Goldrick-Rab

The Real Price of College: Estimating and Supporting Students’ Financial Needs (2021)

For decades, complicated financial aid formulas and variable sticker prices have made it difficult for students to understand the real price of college. For colleges, understanding students’ financial need is also challenging; current financial aid formulas cause many students’ actual need to be understated.
This report examines what happens when:
financial aid leaders and staff better understand students’ financial need, as operationalized by negative EFC; and
students better understand college costs and how to advocate for more financial support.
Using data gathered at Temple University and six colleges and universities in Texas, we explore how more nuanced information about college costs and financial need can change beliefs and behavior among financial aid staff, leaders, and students.

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.

College on the Margins: Higher Education Professionals’ Perspectives on Campus Basic Needs Insecurity (2020)

A substantial share of undergraduates are basic needs insecure, meaning they lack consistent access to essential material goods like food and shelter. These material hardships are associated with poorer academic success, but we know very little about higher education professionals’ perspectives on the matter. Purpose: This paper examines how higher education professionals perceive, understand, and support college students who experience basic needs insecurity. Research Design: Using data from interviews with 59 professionals who work at eight broad access public colleges and universities across five states, we employ an institutional logics perspective to understand how they draw on normative scripts, rationales, and schemas to guide their responses to campus basic needs insecurity. Findings: Higher education professionals have considerable discretion when working with students who are basic needs insecure, and they draw on organizational, professional, and broader social spheres to guide their interactions. We identify three distinct logics—systemic, quiescent, and cautious—that are unique from one another on two dimensions: locus of control and individual response based on perceived locus of control. Conclusions: The design and implementation of initiatives designed to support vulnerable students must consider the ways in which on-the-ground professionals understand students, their needs, and the sources of their challenges.

Going without: An exploration of food and housing insecurity among undergraduates (2018)

The rising price of higher education and its implications for equity and accessibility have been extensively documented, but the material conditions of students’ lives are often overlooked. Data from more than 30,000 two- and 4-year college students indicate that approximately half are food insecure, and recent estimates suggest that at least 20% of 2-year college students have very low levels of food security. At least one-third of 2-year students are housing insecure, including up to 14% who are homeless, whereas between 11% and 19% of 4-year students are housing insecure. Most of these students work and receive financial aid, but only a fraction receive public or private assistance to help make ends meet. Implications for research on college affordability and efforts to boost college graduation rates are discussed.

The Dark Side of College (Un)Affordability: Food and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education (2016)

Some students from low-income families are unable to pay their college costs without experiencing material hardship. What they do to make ends meet (e.g., go hungry and homeless) inhibits learning and discourages persistence.

Strategic college leaders investigate the needs of their students and draw on the strengths of their institutions and those of their communities to meet those challenges: for example, by changing school policies and financial due dates, creating short-term interest-free loan programs at the beginning of the school year, hiring counselors with social-work backgrounds, working with local food banks and housing authorities, and offering free tax-preparation services.

Institutions can also collaborate with non-profit organizations such as the College and University Food Bank Alliance, Single Stop, and the Center for Working Families to help students access existing social-safety-net resources.

Changes to federal and state policies that increase access to food stamps or extend the school lunch program to college students could better support students with financial need.

Safety, Security, and College Attainment: An Investigation of Undergraduates’ Basic Needs and Institutional Response (2014)

There is increasing evidence that students from low-income families are facing great difficulties in covering the costs of college attendance, as need-based financial aid has not kept up with rising costs. For some students, these financial constraints can lead to difficult decisions about whether to sacrifice consistent access to food or secure and safe housing in order to remain in school. This paper examines evidence of these struggles among undergraduates and then turns to consider how institutional leaders are responding. Using quantitative and qualitative data from five states, we explore three types of responses. One group of leaders embraces the work of meeting students’ basic needs as part of the college mission and actively seeks strategies and solution, while another group expresses a desire to help but mainly engages in wishful thinking. At the same time, some institutional actors respond to students’ financial constraints by questioning whether or not they belong in college, raising concerns about their deservingness. Implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Clearing the path to a brighter future: Addressing Barriers to Community College Access and Success (2013)

Over the past 100 years, community colleges have evolved to become the largest sector of higher education, representing over 8 million credit students nationwide. These public institutions are pillars of the communities, providing education and workforce training that fuel local economies. While community colleges have historically focused on providing access to higher education for students, the need to increase degree attainment has emerged as an equally important aspect of institutional achievement. As the Association of Community Colleges Trustees work towards the goal of increasing not only higher education access but success for the nation’s low-income and underserved populations, there remains an overarching concern regarding the ability of our institutions to provide students with the assistance and support needed to persist and complete their degrees.