Demographic and Academic Characteristics of Pell Grant Recipients at Community Colleges
Using data on more than 50,000 community college students who first enrolled during the 2005–06 academic year at one of nine community colleges in three large states, this paper presents demographic and academic characteristics of students who did and did not receive a Pell Grant. The descriptive findings suggest that, despite lower levels of initial college readiness, Pell recipients had a stronger academic focus than non-Pell recipients. Yet, while Pell recipients had higher credit completion ratios and were more likely to complete an award, they were also more likely to be enrolled in the same college with more than 30 credits after five years. This suggests that Pell recipients at community colleges may be taking a longer period of time to complete an academic credential than is prudent.
Aiding or Dissuading? The Effects of Exhausting Eligibility for Need-Based Aid on Bachelor's Degree Attainment and Time to Completion
While studies find that need-based financial aid can increase college access, persistence, and completion, little is known about how tuition subsidies affect students after they have enrolled in college and how losing aid impacts postsecondary attainment. I shed light on these questions by exploiting recent changes to federal Pell Grant eligibility rules that reduced the lifetime availability for aid from 9 to 6 full-time-equivalent years. Using longitudinal data from the University System of Georgia, I compare student outcomes before versus after the rule change for Pell recipients who were affected and unaffected by the new lifetime limit. The results indicate that aid exhaustion required students to borrow more, which in turn accelerated their time to completion. The rule change increased the probability of term-over-term re-enrollment and bachelor’s degree completion within 8 years by 2-3 percentage points. Students who had at least one year to adjust to the new rule before exhausting aid eligibility were also much more likely to graduate before experiencing aid losses. Importantly, I find no evidence that the rule change decreased the overall probability of degree attainment. The findings therefore indicate that setting limits on the availability of need-based grants can accelerate time to completion for students who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to finishing college.
Women's health in prison: urgent need for improvement in gender equity and social justice.
The needs of women held in detention have received little attention and con-tinue to be neglected by health systems and prison authorities. One reason for this, too readily accepted until now, is that women prisoners are a clear minor-ity group within prisons all over the world. It is only recently that attention has been drawn to the fact that a minor-ity status does not justify the widespread ignorance of women’s basic rights and the considerable gender insensitivity still dominating criminal justice systems.In Europe alone, there are about 100 000 women and girls in prison.