TY - JOUR
T1 - The Organizational Ecology of College Affordability
T2 - Research Activity, State Grant Aid Policies, and Student Debt at U.S. Public Universities
AU - Eaton, Charlie
AU - Kulkarni, Sheisha
AU - Birgeneau, Robert
AU - Brady, Henry
AU - Hout, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
State need-based grants could potentially fill some of the gap between Pell Grant awards and college costs. Unlike institutional aid, state grants are typically funded by taxes and other state revenues rather than public universities themselves. State grants can be used to cover tuition, room, and board costs, thus offsetting the need to borrow using student loans. Scholars have documented a high tuition/high aid funding model for public universities that first emerged the early 1990s (Hearn, Griswold, and Marine 1996; Toutkoushian and Shafiq 2010). Both tuition and need-based grant aid spending have since expanded dramatically. Spending on need-based grants across all states increased 37 percent from $5.7 billion in 2005 to $7.8 billion in 2015 (National Association of State Student Grant & Aid Programs 2015). The scale of state programs has begun to approach $30 billion in annual Pell grants and $14 billion in veteran grants (The College Board 2016).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - Sociologists have theorized U.S. universities as a heterogenous organizational ecology. We use this lens to compare student debt and college prices for low-income students across public universities according to their research intensiveness and varied state grant aid policies. We show that students at research-intensive public universities have had an easier time repaying student loans than at other schools. By linking multiple data sets, we also provide the first comprehensive assessment for all 50 states of state-level need-based grant aid programs, which might alleviate loan repayment challenges. We find large disparities. California, Washington, Wyoming, and New Jersey spent more than $4,000 on aid per low-income student in 2015, more than the federal expenditure on Pell Grants for their state. Most states spend little in comparison. Contra the Bennett hypothesis, we also find that state need-based aid is strongly associated with both lower net prices and lower student loan nonrepayment rates.
AB - Sociologists have theorized U.S. universities as a heterogenous organizational ecology. We use this lens to compare student debt and college prices for low-income students across public universities according to their research intensiveness and varied state grant aid policies. We show that students at research-intensive public universities have had an easier time repaying student loans than at other schools. By linking multiple data sets, we also provide the first comprehensive assessment for all 50 states of state-level need-based grant aid programs, which might alleviate loan repayment challenges. We find large disparities. California, Washington, Wyoming, and New Jersey spent more than $4,000 on aid per low-income student in 2015, more than the federal expenditure on Pell Grants for their state. Most states spend little in comparison. Contra the Bennett hypothesis, we also find that state need-based aid is strongly associated with both lower net prices and lower student loan nonrepayment rates.
KW - organizations
KW - sociology of education
KW - student debt
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85095752935&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/2378023119862409
DO - 10.1177/2378023119862409
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85095752935
SN - 2378-0231
VL - 5
JO - Socius
JF - Socius
ER -