Would conditioning federal student aid on graduation rates likely improve access?
Restrictions on the flow of federal student aid to institutions based on graduation rates, or other academic measures, is likely to undermine access by redistributing scarce student aid funds to institutions with higher income distributions and away from those serving large numbers of low-income students. Would adding merit-based components to the Pell Grant program likely improve access? In general, the addition of merit-based components to the Pell Grant program would tend to punish the lowest income, most at-risk students by lowering their award relative to what it could have been without such components. Even if these components are funded with new money, the opportunity cost of conditioning the size of Pell awards on measures of academic progress is raising the maximum award for the lowest income students. Persistence is primarily a function of academic factors and unmet need, not small differences in award amounts. Would making remedial courses ineligible for Title IV funding lik
