Moving the Needle: How Financial Aid Policies Can Help States Meet Student Completion Goals

This white paper, examines state policies to improve affordability, encourage full-time enrollment, and incent timely completion of postsecondary credentials and degrees. The authors found that existing grant aid programs do not provide sufficient support to allow students with documented need to cover tuition costs and living expenses, nor do they focus on or encourage full-time enrollment and timely completion. Therefore, many students must work at least part time and are unable to devote themselves to full-time study and those who enroll full time based on the federal standard of 12 credit hours per term still have difficulty completing on time. Research has also shown that costs also have a significant negative impact on timely college completion, particularly for low-income students. Focusing on the varying contexts of individual states, they also examine existing policy recommendations that are gaining traction in the national and state-level affordability discussions: (1) Federal/state matching grant program with incorporated maintenance of effort; and (2) State grant aid programs with incentives for students to enroll full-time. [For the update to this report, see ED589770.]