Currently, state postsecondary aid systems assess a student’s ability to pay for college by focusing on their household income, a key measure of a student’s ability to cover college costs. Almost entirely overlooked, however, is household wealth. This oversight obscures the significant challenges faced by dually disadvantaged students—those who are both low-income and low-wealth. We collaborated with the Partnership for College Completion and the Here Lab on a new report that shows how targeting aid specifically to these students would increase college access and educational attainment in California, Illinois, and New York, the states analyzed. The report shows that the return to states on providing additional aid to dually disadvantaged students would be 3.4-5.5 times greater than the initial cost.
The report offers practical changes for state policymakers that would greatly improve accurate aid targeting and result in increased college enrollment, higher graduation rates by state, and a reduction in student loan defaults.
