Project Activities
Researchers have completed data-use agreements for the necessary administrative data for tracking program eligibility and postsecondary outcomes for students who entered a California community college between 2011–12 and 2021–22. In 2019, analysis of outcomes for the earlier cohorts began during year 1 and in 2020, the research team conducted a representative survey of students in the California Community College (CCC) system. Between 2021 and 2023, researchers have coded and analyzed aid impacts for all cohorts through the 2021–22 academic year, compared findings across cohorts, and synthesized findings from the quantitative and qualitative analyses. In 2024, the research team will add an additional cohort of students to examine the effects of an additional increase in aid (up to $8000) beginning in the 2022–23 academic year.
Structured Abstract
Setting
This study will take place across all California community colleges.
Sample
The sample includes recent high school graduates who applied for a California financial aid program and entered a California Community College between 2011-12 and 2022-2023.
The Cal Grant B financial aid program provides a base award of up to $1648 each year for CCC students. Beginning in 2015–16, the CCC introduced a new aid program to provide Cal Grant B recipients with additional aid intending to incentivize full-time enrollment while reducing the cost for low-income students to access postsecondary education. In its first iteration, the Full-Time Student Success Grant (FTSSG) provided income-eligible students with an additional $1000 per year in grant aid, conditional upon enrollment in 12 or more credits per semester and maintenance of a 2.0 or higher GPA. In 2017–18, the College Completion Grant (CCCG) also provided students who receive the FTSSG with an additional $750 per semester if they enroll in 15 more credits. In 2018–19, these two programs were combined into the Student Success Completion Grant, which provided different amounts for students enrolling in 12–14.9 units and 15+ units each term; eligible students enrolling in 15+ units each semester received additional aid of $4,000 annually. Starting in the 2022–23 school year, students enrolling in 15+ units each semester received $8,000 of additional aid per year. Because Cal Grant B recipients are also receiving a fee waiver and do not pay community college tuition, their grant awards go entirely toward meeting access costs including books and academic supplies, transportation costs, and living expenses.
Research design and methods
A sequence of regression discontinuity (RD) analyses feed into an over-arching "difference-in-discontinuities" analysis. For each cohort entering a CCC from 2011–12 through 2021–22, researchers will employ an RD model to estimate the impacts of Cal Grant B eligibility and receipt on access, persistence, and degree completion outcomes. The first set of models will yield annual intent-to-treat and treatment-on-the-treated estimates of Cal Grant B policy impact for students whose family income falls within close range of the income cutoff that determines receipt/non-receipt of the grant. These annual estimates will serve as the basis for carrying out the difference-in-discontinuities analysis, which will assess whether significant changes in policy impacts resulted from the increases to Cal Grant B aid instituted during the 2017–18 academic year. This analysis will proceed in similar fashion to a comparative time series in which the outcomes of interest are the impacts of aid eligibility (or receipt) on postsecondary outcomes, with fall 2017 serving as the interruption point. A significant difference in discontinuities at this time point would indicate a significant change in the impact of the Cal Grant B policy.
Control condition
Students above the income eligibility cutoff for the Cal Grant B awards will serve as the control group.
Key measures
The research team will use family income data to code measures of eligibility for Cal Grant B aid. High school test scores and indicators of student demographic characteristics will ensure that students in the treatment and control conditions are equivalent on observable characteristics. Researchers will code college transcript data into short-run outcomes measures including first-semester enrollment, first-year GPA, and first-year college credits; medium-run persistence outcomes indicating timely progress toward degree completion or transfer; and, for earlier cohorts, long-run outcome measures tracking total credits earned and degree completion within 6 years.
Data analytic strategy
The research team will employ a series of cohort-specific RD models within a broader interrupted time series model focusing on the 2017–18 academic year as the interruption point. The models will employ the Cal Grant B eligibility cutoffs in a standard econometric RD model to estimate relations between aid and each of the postsecondary outcomes of interest. Diagnostic analyses will assess whether the data are consistent with RD modeling assumptions by probing for changes in patterns of income and demographic characteristics around the aid eligibility cutoff point. After using the RD model to generate aid impact estimates for all outcomes of interest, researchers will import these estimates into an interrupted time series model to execute a "difference-in-discontinuities" analysis that compares aid impacts across years. They will conduct additional sensitivity analyses to assess whether estimated aid impacts could plausibly be explained by factors other than aid.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
The research team will disseminate its findings to California policymakers through the Wheelhouse Center for Community College Leadership and Research, a resource and innovation center for California community college leaders, and Policy Analysis for California Education, an independent research center committed to improving all levels of education in California. Results will also be presented to the California Student Aid Commission and CCC Chancellor's Office executives. The team will also produce a report on student participation in and responses to financial aid and variation by campus.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
