Campus-based financial aid programs: Trends and alternative allocation strategies
Abstract
Two federal campus-based financial aid programs, the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) and the Federal Work-Study Program (FWS), combine to provide nearly US$2 billion in funding to students with financial need. However, the allocation formulas have changed little since 1965, resulting in community colleges and newer institutions getting much smaller awards than long-standing private colleges with high costs of attendance. I document the trends in campus-level allocations over the past two decades and explore several different methods to reallocate funds based on current financial need while limiting the influence of high-tuition colleges.
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The inequitable distribution of campus-based allocations has been a policy concern for several decades, but efforts to modify the allocation formula have had only minimal effects.
“The inequitable distribution of campus-based allocations has been a policy concern for several decades, but efforts to modify the allocation formula have had only minimal effects (Kelchen, 2017).”
From College Costs, Financial Aid, and Student Decisions (2022) · cites this paper as Kelchen, 2017
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College Costs, Financial Aid, and Student Decisions
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- Authors
- Kelchen, R.
- Affiliations
- Seton Hall University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kelchen, Robert
- ORCID
- Kelchen, Robert
- Venue
- Educational Policy
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2015-09-22
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 448-480
- ISSN
- 0895-9048 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3896
- OpenAlex
- W2339684954
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 3.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Educational Policy (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Federal Student Aid
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Politics, Economics, and Education Policy
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Education and Public Policy
- Keywords
- financial need, community colleges, private colleges, tuition fees, federal student aid
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