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Buying time: Financial aid allows college students to work less while enrolled

Drew M. Anderson,
Melanie A. Zaber

Many empirical studies have established that financial aid improves college attainment. Few have been able to test why. This study used administrative records of employment and earnings to get a more complete picture of students’ finances during college and test one potential mechanism, that financial aid buys students time by allowing them to work less in off-campus jobs. We studied recipients of New Jersey’s need-based Tuition Aid Grant (TAG). We used the eligibility cutoffs of TAG to identify groups of otherwise similar students who received sharply different amounts of aid. A prior study took the same approach and found that TAG increased on-time graduation rates from public universities. At these schools, 80% of TAG recipients worked at some point during the year. We found that when students received additional aid, on average they reduced earnings dollar for dollar.

Keywords
Postsecondary education; financial aid; inequality; state policy
Education level
Post-secondary education
Topics
Pathways to and Through Postsecondary
Tags
Higher education,
Human capital,
Poverty
Download 12/2024
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/1vpg-7k07
EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:
Anderson, Drew M., and Melanie A. Zaber. (). Buying time: Financial aid allows college students to work less while enrolled. (EdWorkingPaper: -1108). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/1vpg-7k07

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