Adoption of Merit-Based Student Grant Programs: An Event History Analysis

Abstract

As of 2005, 15 states had adopted a broad-based merit aid program, providing a combined $1.2 billion for college students on the basis of academic qualifications. This represents a shift away from a long tradition of need-based aid at the state and federal levels. This article utilizes a Cox proportional hazards model to analyze states’ characteristics that are associated with their probability of adopting a merit aid program. Lower levels of college continuation and educational attainment are found to increase the hazard for a state’s adoption of a merit aid program, whereas higher levels of student out-migration decrease the proportional hazard for a state’s adoption of such a program.