About 55 percent of students with Pell Grants graduated in six years from 2009 to 2015.
Ohio University students with Pell Grants, a type of financial aid for those with high need, are less likely to graduate within six years.
Out of the students who started at OU in 2009, 55 percent of those with Pell Grants graduated within six years. By comparison, 67 percent of all students starting in 2009 graduated within six years.
“I think it may be harder for students with Pell grants to graduate just because if you qualify for a Pell grant, you probably already have a financial need,” Shay Thomas, a sophomore studying criminology who has a Pell grant, said in an email. “The Pell grant may not be enough to make college affordable for the students that receive it.”
Though Thomas said some students still may not be able to afford a full college education with their Pell Grants, she said her $5,775 grant makes it possible for her to attend school.
“Having a Pell Grant makes getting an education so much more accessible for me,” Thomas said in an email. “I come from a single-parent, low-middle class household and without the Pell Grant and other financial aid, I probably wouldn't be able to afford to go to college.”
OU officials said Pell grants can help keep costs low for students.
That information, which is from the Office of Institutional Research, includes students who have graduated by 2015 and was the most recent data available.
“We are regularly considering student cost and affordability at Ohio, often felt most closely by students with Pell grants, through our significant financial aid programs for needy students that have been growing year after year,” Craig Cornell, the senior vice provost for Strategic Enrollment Management, said in an email.
According to a study conducted in 2015 by the Education Trust, OU is not alone. For the more than 1,000 schools surveyed, the graduation rate for students with Pell Grants was 51 percent, and the graduation rate for all students averaged 65 percent.
“By closing existing gaps at the college level, especially the egregiously large gaps that exist in about one-third of four-year institutions, we can cut that gap in half," Andrew H. Nichols, director of higher education research and data analytics for the Education Trust and author of the study, said in a news release. "To go the remaining distance, though, we’ll have to take on the even more challenging matter of enrollment stratification, because where Pell students do and don’t enroll matters quite a bit.”
For the three years before the 2009 group, OU students with Pell Grants were graduating at an increasing rate, changing from 51 percent for students who started in 2006 to 59 percent for those who started in 2008.
“We are happy to see that our graduation (rates) for Pell grant students continues to go up,” Cornell said in an email. “This is in line with our twin mission of student access and success. Through our generous financial aid strategies, combined with the Pell grant, we are able to significantly help our lower income students achieve their academic potential.”
Fewer OU students have received Pell Grants over the past five years.
About $38 million in Pell Grants went to about 10,400 students during the previous academic year. In the 2010-11 academic year, $47 million was divided among about 12,400 students, according to university data provided by OU Spokeswoman Katie Quaranta.
Because of new legislation the U.S. Congress passed in December, the maximum full-time award for Ohio University students will increase from $5,775 to $5,845 for each student for the 2016-17 academic year, according to a previous Post report.
Jenny Klein, assistant dean for Persistence and Student Success in the University College, said OU hopes to offer programs for students who could struggle.
Though they are not aimed specifically at students with Pell Grants, those groups can offer assistance to students who might need it, she said.
“For example, not all students with Pell grants are first generation college students, but many are,” Klein said in an email. “We have a program to support (first generation students), which in turn helps support many Pell (Grant) recipients.”
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