Gadfly Proposes More Transparency For College Success Of Pell Grant Recipients
The author is a professor of economics at Ohio University.
An Open Letter to John Kline and Virginia Foxx
May 2, 2011, 11:41 am
By Richard Vedder
John Kline and Virginia Foxx chair the House of Representatives’ Education and Workforce committee and its higher-education subcommittee, respectively. They have expressed a desire to look at some issues of importance to the higher-education community. Along with some other researchers and heads of higher-education-related organizations, I met with staffers for these members of Congress recently and suggested some ideas for hearings. I have heard no followup, so have decided to take the issue public, by suggesting one modest but specific reform that could provide enormously valuable information affecting how we spend billions of dollars of federal higher-education money.
Here is my idea: Require the U.S. Department of Education to collect and publish, by institution and for the nation as a whole, data on the academic success of Pell Grant recipients. What is the four-year graduation rate? Six-year graduation rate? Freshman to sophomore retention rate?
That the department keeps tabs on all sorts of things of marginal importance relating to universities, but fails to keep good track of the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on Pell Grant investments, is a scandal. And I think I know WHY they fail to keep graduation-rate statistics on Pell recipients: They are almost certainly embarrassingly, appallingly low. Revealing the statistic would hurt political support for the program.
Why do I think a low proportion of Pell Grant recipients ever graduate, or at least within six years? First, whenever I statistically try to explain variations in graduation rates between schools in a multiple regression model, the percentage of students who are Pell recipients is usually a fairly strong, statistically significant negative indicator—the more Pell recipients, the lower graduation rates.
Second, examination of data from schools with very high proportion of Pell Grants but low graduation rates suggests that even under the most extreme assumptions, it would be virtually impossible for as many as one-half of the Pell recipients to graduate within six years. To be sure, the low graduation rates may not be caused by receipt of a Pell Grant, but rather related to other characteristics of Pell recipients, such as their low-income status and, perhaps more importantly, their mediocre secondary-education performance (in part the consequence of low-quality primary and secondary public schools).
Nonetheless, if we spend over $40-billion annually on Pell Grants, wouldn’t it be interesting to know how much of that is associated with academic success, and how much with academic failure? How many college graduates are there that owe their degrees to Pell Grants? Is that number high or low in relation to the cost of the program? Shouldn’t Reps. Kline and/or Foxx, and others, be asking that question at hearings? Should hearings be held to determine whether it would not be unreasonable to require the Department of Education to provide graduation-rate information of Pell Grant recipients?
The hearing could encompass a broader assessment of the Pell program. Should there be more rigid time limits on the number of grants a single person can receive? Should a student who works hard and graduates in three years be rewarded for his/her diligence, which saves taxpayers funds? Should a student with a very low probability for success, based on low high-school grades, test scores, etc., be given probationary Pell Grants, continued receipt of which is contingent on good academic progress? In short, should there not be some performance standards, as there are for most private forms of higher-education student assistance?
Finally, the number of Pell Grant recipients has exploded. Are we not giving grants to middle-income families who probably would find a way to send their child to school without the grant? Are we not making federal aid an entitlement, at a time where we should be reducing entitlement spending given our enormous federal deficit?
Hold the hearing, Rep. Foxx. I would love to testify.
You will probably not get your hearings, because Pell grants are the new third rail. This became clear when they were not cut (except for the summer Pell) for the 2011-2012 school year. Certainly exposing low Pell graduation rates would seem to give ammunition to those seeking cuts. But if (as you allude to) low Pell graduation rates were caused by factors such as students dropping out because of economic distress, this might be an argument for increased amounts, instead.
In any case, Pell grants were supposed to allow students who were unable to afford to attend college, to go. It was supposed to be their financial aid base, which in combination with state and school aid, would give them an opportunity that they would not normally have had. Whether or not they get the degree, they do have this opportunity, now. So the questions become, “Is no college, better than some college,” and “Is a degree worth less (to taxpayers) if it is gained in 6 or 8 years, rather than 4?”
Maybe there is a place for performance standards for pell grant recipients, however, I argue that people should be more mindful of the fact that many students are taking longer to graduated.
If you are a nontraditional student, for example, you may only be able to take a few classes each semester, which explains the prolonged program. Even some younger people are not able to attend college full time due to the expense of attending college.
Quite simply, a lightened course load equates to a longer stay in college. I am not saying that people with poor grades need to be rewarded, but we must be mindful of the fact that it just takes longer to finish these days.