Financial aid and student persistence in online education in the United States |
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| Authors: | Adnan Qayyum Sarah Zipf Ramazan Gungor Janet May Dillon |
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| Institution: | 1. Lifelong Learning and Adult Education, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA;2. Higher Education, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA;3. School of Graduate Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA;4. Penn State Outreach, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA |
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| Abstract: | Distance education has historically had lower completion rates. Several models of persistence, for on-campus students, indicate that students’ financial status affects their decision to persist. This study involved providing distance education students’ financial aid in the form of institutional scholarships (N = 545) at Penn State University in the United States. The recipients were students who were not overachievers and not at-risk of failing, but somewhere in the middle. The purpose of the study was to test if receiving financial aid was related to students’ persistence. Using logistic regression and Chi-square analysis, this study found that scholarship-receiving students with higher financial need were two times more likely to persist in their studies than those with lower financial need. Results suggest that there is a positive relationship between providing even small financial aid to students with high-financial need and their persistence in their studies. |
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| Keywords: | Persistence completion financial aid policy |
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