Education Commons^™

Does Kentucky’S Merit-Based Scholarship Program, Kees, Improve College Completion?, Alex E. Combs

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

College completion is a complex process involving numerous socioeconomic factors at the individual, institutional, and governmental levels. One important factor is the way in which financial aid is disbursed so that affordability does not serve as a barrier to completion. Awarding scholarships on the basis of merit is one aspect of financial aid structure that has grown in popularity over recent decades, in turn, receiving considerable attention from policy researchers with the intent to assess how they affect an array of postsecondary education outcomes. To date, research of merit-based aid’s effect on college completion has been relatively sparse, yielding contradictory …