Georgia is considering state-funded completion grants for students near to finishing their degrees. More funding is good news for struggling students, even if it is only available to students who are close to the college finish line.
A new Georgia bill would provide grants of up to $2500 for students who are close to completing their degrees but need a little extra funding to get to commencement. The grants would be available to students who have completed 80% of the required credits for their degrees.
Georgia House Bill 1435 was passed by a vote of 171-3 and is now under consideration in the Georgia Senate.
What are completion grants?
Completion grants for students near graduation have been trialed by various institutions over the past ten years, including Georgia State. A 2016 survey showed that one-third of institutions had some form of completion grant program.
Georgia State has claimed that their completion grants help students graduate. However, a rigorous study of completion grants offered at 11 different institutions has found no evidence that the grants helped students graduate at higher rates than students who did not receive additional funds. While additional funding for higher education is vitally important, the lack of evidence for the effectiveness of completion grant programs might be an indication that an alternative, like funding need based financial aid would be a more effective use of funds.
Need based financial aid might be a better approach
Georgia has no need-based state aid program, one of only two states without a grant program that awards funds based on a family’s income and assets for college students. Georgia legislators did create a need-based grant in 2018, but it exists in name only—no funding has been provided for the program.
The majority of state aid for Georgia students comes from the Georgia Hope Scholarship. This merit-based award has been criticized for providing more support to well-off students than those coming from low-income families. A completion grant program might partially compensate for the lack of funding provided to students with fewer financial resources earlier in their degrees, but is not an adequate replacement for a robust need based aid program.
Many students start to run out of financial aid as they get to the end of their studies, with Pell Grants often exhausted before graduation. Students eligible for the Hope Scholarship can also lose eligibility if their grades are not high enough. One of the goals of this new program is to help students complete their degrees if they have run out of other funding options.
New program but no new funding
The proposed grant, while welcome, does not allocate new funding for higher education. The funds will be reallocated from the state student loan program. It also only covers a fraction of the total student need. The legislation will allocate $10 million annually to the new program, with funds going to students who have a gap between their other financial aid and college costs.
Providing additional funding for higher education will always be embraced by students and families in need of extra support to cover college expenses. It might be more beneficial to those students for Georgia to establish a need-based financial aid program, ensuring students who need it have additional financial support from day one.
Investing in students only to let them fail due to needing a small amount of additional funds is undoubtedly counterproductive and a waste of state and federal dollars. While possibly not the most effective approach, hopefully, providing students with the money they need to get to the finish line will help struggling Georgia students complete their degrees.
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