51st Annual Survey Report on State-Sponsored Student Financial Aid: 2019-2020 Academic Year

Each year, National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs (NASSGAP) completes a survey regarding state-funded expenditures for postsecondary student financial aid. This report provides data regarding state-funded expenditures for student financial aid and illustrates the extent of efforts made by the states to assist postsecondary students. Information in this report is based on academic year 2019-20 data from the 51st Annual NASSGAP survey. Data highlights include: (1) In the 2019-20 academic year, the states awarded about $14.8 billion in total state funded student financial aid, an increase of about 4.5 percent in nominal terms and about 2.6 percent in constant dollar terms from the $14.1 billion in aid awarded in 2018-19; (2) The majority of state aid (87.5 percent) remains in the form of grants. In 2019-20, about 4.2 million grant awards were made representing about $12.9 billion in need and nonneed-based grant aid. This represents an increase of about 4.9 percent from the $12.4 billion in grants awarded in 2018-19. Of the grant money awarded in 2019-20, about three-quarters were need-based and about one-quarter was nonneed-based, essentially the same percentage breakout as last year; (3) Funding for undergraduate need-based grant aid increased nationwide from $8.9 billion (corrected) in 2018-19 to about $9.3 billion in 2019-20, an increase of about 4.4 percent in nominal terms; (4) Eight states (California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington) collectively awarded about $6.3 billion in undergraduate need-based grant aid, accounting for about 69 percent of all aid of this type; and (5) States provided about $1.8 billion in nongrant student aid, including loans, loan assumptions, conditional grants, work-study, and tuition waivers. Tuition waivers represented about 47 percent of nongrant aid. [For the previous report, "50th Annual Survey Report on State-Sponsored Student Financial Aid: 2018-2019 Academic Year," see ED611303.]