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This 2007 study by Rong Chen and Stephen DesJardins attempts to find correlations between income, type of financial aid, and college dropout rates. They use data from Beginning Postsecondary Students survey (BPS:96/01) which followed students nationwide who started as post-secondary students during the 1995-1996 academic year and tracked them for six years, recording their background, financial aid received, and enrollment status, among other factors. The survey had data on those who started at 2-year and 4-year universities, but this study only looked at those who started at a 4-year institution.
Financial aid was broken down into three categories: Pell grants, loans, and work-study aid. The data set had some holes in it, while for grants and loans it gave an exact amount in dollars for all years, it only gave exact amounts for work-study aid was only reported in year 1, the remaining years only indicated whether this type of aid was received or not. Therefore, the researchers could not test for amount of aid overall, just the type of aid. Income was measured in four categories, lowest, middle, highest, and unreported. Their analysis found that students in the lowest third drop out the most, but all types of aid help in lowering dropout rates. Work-study aid and loans lowered dropout rates about equally for all income levels, but Pell grants were most effective on low income students.
Update: For their data set, low income meant less than $25,000, middle meant between $25,000 and $75,000, and high was anything above $75,000.
It looks like I missed this post the first time. Is lowest in the income category meaning below the Poverty line? Likewise it would help to know where the other income categories are.
ReplyDeleteOur campus has a program called Illinois Promise, which is aimed at giving kids from families that are below the Poverty line a better chance in success. You might want to look at that Web site. One of the things they do - apart from paying the tuition, is to offer an optional mentoring program. I have been a mentor in that program and from it know that the first years is critical for these students. That is when they develop coping skills.
Also - you have a typo - "wholes" where it should say holes. I'd change that.
Thanks for the typo comment. Also, I updated the post with the income levels that the authors used.
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