Pell Grants Only Effective in Some Cases

A new longitudinal study from the University of Wisconsin shows that Pell grants for the neediest students are most effective when given a boost by additional aid.

Through interviews and surveys, researchers have been gathering information on the credit load and academic persistence of 1,500 undergraduates who are receiving Pell grants.  Some of the students (about 600) are receiving additional grants through the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars (FFWS). FFWS provides Pell grant recipients enrolled full-time with an extra $3,500 in funding each year.  The remaining 900 study participants are not getting this $3,500 boost, giving the study a classic control group experimental feel.

In a press release last Friday, Sara Goldrick-­Rab, one of the researchers, said that the FFWS grant "really helped some students, didn’t help others, and may even have had adverse consequences for another group."

This sounds ambiguous at best. But it is not out of the ordinary with prior research that suggests that the average impact of Pell grants across all recipients is not a dramatic increase in persistence or college success.

The setup of the study being conducted by Goldrick-Rab and her colleagues allows them to go beyond this basic average and illuminate something important. In their study so far, students who a) came from low-income families, b) had lower achievement test scores, and c) who are first-generation college students saw a significant increase in college succcess as compared to other low-income students with higher test scores and parents who already held four-year degrees.

The low-income, first-generation, lower-test-score group was 28 percent more likely to complete 60 credits in their first two years of school, keeping them on track to graduate on time.

The researchers have yet to release findings which delve into the dynamics of what is going on, but presumably one of the areas they will look into is how the additional funding influences the number of hours students need to work while in school. 

The definition of low-income for federal aid purposes is a range, and low-income students with college-educated parents likely land toward the upper limit of that range. For first-generation students, the picture is different. It will be interesting to see how much different.

In a report called "Work Less, Study More and Succeed," Demos looked at the impact of working on the success of community college students, many of whom are first-generation.

The connection here is clear. Full-time enrollment and part-time employment of less than 15 hours per week provides the optimal situation for young students to concentrate on their studies and finish their degree.

Students who work more hours, even though they may be enrolled full-time in name, have a hard time balancing work and school.  Admittedly, fewer than half of students under age 24 at public four-year univeristies work more than part time, and only about 15 percent work full time.  But if you had to guess which students habitually log the most hours in at an extra job, first-generation students would be a safe bet.