Degrees Denied: Adults Left out of State Financial Aid Programs
Blog Post
Aug. 4, 2015
States rely on their higher education systems to retrain and educate their citizens for jobs in the new economy. But, contrary to this goal, many states create barriers for students who are not attending college straight out of high school to access state financial aid. As a result, adult students who are not attending college directly from high school believe that state grant aid is not for them.
A survey of prospective and recently enrolled students commissioned by New America and conducted by Harris Poll found that 61 percent were familiar with state grants. (You can read more about the survey here.) Compared to familiarity with other forms of financial aid, state grant aid ranks third only after institutional scholarships/grants (82 percent) and student loans (79 percent). But despite the majority of prospective and recently-enrolled students knowing about state grants, only 31 percent expected to receive them. Digging deeper into the survey data, this lack of confidence in receiving state grant aid comes from students who are over 20 years of age. Only 18 percent of men and 16 percent of women over 20 years old currently receive or expect to receive state grant aid, compared to 46 percent of men ages 16 to 19 and 43 percent of women ages 16 to 19.
As a nation still emerging from recession and with an increased focus on higher education as a workforce engine, why are so many returning adult students sure that they will not receive state grant aid? The answer is because, in many cases, they are either explicitly excluded or barriers are put in their way. The five largest state financial aid programs in California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Texas illustrate how these barriers can play out:
Eligibility is cut off a limited amount of time after graduation from high school. Many programs, particularly merit-based programs, cut off eligibility to students a limited amount of time after graduating from high school. The TEXAS Grant requires students to enroll in a bachelor’s degree program no more than 16 months after graduating from high school or to have graduated no later than May 1, 2013 and enlisted in the military. The Georgia HOPE scholarship cuts off eligibility for students seven years after their graduation from high school. The Florida Bright Futures scholarship requires students to fill out the application for the program by August 31 after they graduate from high school.
The income cut thresholds for independent students are extremely low. In New York, a dependent student’s family or an independent student with children can make up to $80,000 a year and remain eligible, while a single, independent student can only make $10,000 and remain eligible for the state’s Tuition Assistance Program.
The program requires high school grades to be reported to the state. California’s large need-based aid program, the Cal Grant, has a merit component that requires students to report their GPA to the state. High schools are required to submit GPAs to the state for students who graduated in the current or prior year. Older students must work with their high schools to get their GPAs submitted. Older students are also required to report their own GPAs for the HOPE Scholarship.
The program has limited funding. There are three ways these programs allocate their limited funding: 1) first come/first serve, 2) an additional competition and 3) by increasing merit requirements.
- First come/first serve: The TEXAS grant funding is expected to cover only 84 percent of newly eligible students over the next two years. With Washington State’s State Need Grant, only about 70 percent of those eligible will receive funding. All of that funding will be allocated on a first come/ first serve basis. This puts adults at a disadvantage because they are juggling multiple priorities and tend to apply later for aid.
- An additional competition: In California, the entitlement Cal Grant guarantees funding for high school graduates going straight to college and for students who transfer from community colleges. Adult students attending four-year institutions get dropped into the competitive pool of only 22,500 awards. The competition is based on both GPA and need, and has nearly 20 times as many applicants as awards. Not surprisingly, recipients tend to be more low-income and high-achieving than entitlement recipients.
- Increasing merit eligibility: During the recession, both Florida and Georgia increased the GPA and standardized test requirements for their large merit-based aid programs. This change ended up targeting even more affluent, high-achieving, and young students. These students would attend college no matter what funding they receive and represent a poor use of limited state financial aid dollars.
An unmarried 26-year-old living in New York City wants to go back to school to finish her degree but her $20,000 a year salary renders her ineligible for a need-based state grant. A 30-year-old with great high school grades is denied a HOPE Scholarship because she waited too long to enroll in college. A low-income 45-year-old Californian can’t get his high school to send his high school GPA to the state and misses out on a Cal Grant. A busy mom in Washington State doesn’t fill out the FAFSA until the financial aid deadline and learns that all state grant funds have already been allocated. These students may never enroll in higher education or, if they do, they may be more likely to drop out without financial support.
States need to improve their higher education attainment rates, and few will be able to attain their goals by focusing solely on students coming directly from high school. Given this, it makes great sense for policymakers to consider how to make state financial aid more accessible to students regardless of age."