Which Factors Impact Pell Grant Students’ Persistence and Graduation?

Abstract

Pell Grants are awarded to students from low-income families. The federal government has spent significant resources to support this demographic of students with the goal of improving their socioeconomic status by increasing their likelihood of academic success. The outcome of these efforts has drawn nationwide attention. Key indicators of academic success are retention and graduation rates. This study looked beyond these indicators towards other factors that might had influenced Pell recipients’ persistence along with factors that also influence the path to graduation. This study focused on freshmen enrolled in the fall of 2012 at a research university who were awarded Pell Grants. Logistic regression was used in the selection of the significant influential factors separately. The factors, which included GPA by the end of the first academic year, the number of STEM and English courses taken by the end of the second academic year, as well as whether the students successfully passed the courses, etc. were then individually used to predict students’ persistence and graduation status. The study results not only indicated that Pell recipients do face more challenges to graduate, but also DID emphasize the critical importance of STEM and English courses for all students.