Marginal Effects of Merit Aid for Low-Income Students

Higher Education, New Findings, September 2020

Financial aid from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (STBF) pro­vides excep­tion­al­ly gen­er­ous sup­port to a col­lege pop­u­la­tion sim­i­lar to that served by a host of state aid pro­grams. In con­junc­tion with STBF, we ran­dom­ly assigned aid awards to thou­sands of Nebraska high school grad­u­ates from low-income, minor­i­ty, and first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege house­holds. Randomly-assigned STBF awards boost bach­e­lor’s (BA) degree com­ple­tion for stu­dents tar­get­ing four-year schools by about 8 points. 

Explore the study web­site for more findings.