Keeping Needy Students in College Hinges More on Academic Success Than Financial Aid, Study Finds

By Elizabeth F. Farrell

Colleges that assume they can improve undergraduate retention rates by giving low-income students more financial aid may be wrong, according to a working paper by Serge Herzog, director of institutional analysis at the University of Nevada at Reno.

In his paper, Mr. Herzog also concludes that students from higher-income families are more likely to persist in college when given grants or scholarships than are their counterparts from lower-income families when given those forms