Aid Like A Paycheck (ALAP), Texas and California, 2014-2017 (ICPSR 38253)

Version Date: Nov 3, 2021

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Principal Investigator(s):
Evan Weissman, MDRC

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38253.v1

Version V1

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Summary

Financial aid plays an essential role not only in allowing many students to enroll in college but also in supporting them in attaining completion and success. Often, however, the total amount of aid does not come close to covering the cost of attendance for full-time students. As a result, the majority of students enrolled at two-year public institutions report feeling financial stress related to paying for school. Students often work while attending college to cover the full cost of attendance, but time spent work-ing can have a negative impact on their academic success.

MDRC launched Aid Like A Paycheck to test whether changes to the timing of student aid disbursement could help students stretch their financial aid to cover their expenses throughout the term, and whether such a policy could improve students' academic and financial outcomes. Most colleges distribute financial aid refunds to students in one or two lump sums during the term. Aid Like A Paycheck tested an alternate approach, in which financial aid refunds were disbursed biweekly, with the goal of helping students better budget their existing financial aid.

MDRC conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of incremental financial aid disbursements at two community college systems in and around Houston, Texas, and at a third system in California's rural Central Valley. At the two institutions in Texas, the study included a randomized controlled trial that gathered data from nearly 9,000 students and tracked them for up to two years.

Citation

Weissman, Evan. Aid Like A Paycheck (ALAP), Texas and California, 2014-2017. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-11-03. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38253.v1

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Funding

Arnold Ventures, Houston Endowment, MetLife Foundation

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

State

Restrictions

This data collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited. To protect respondent privacy, some of the data files in this collection are restricted from general dissemination. To obtain these restricted files researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of a Restricted Data Use Agreement.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2014 -- 2017

Date of Collection

2014 -- 2017
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Study Purpose

The purpose of Aid Like A Paycheck is to test whether changes to the timing of student aid disbursement could help students stretch their financial aid to cover their expenses throughout the term, and whether such a policy could improve students' academic and financial outcomes.

Study Design

To evaluate the effectiveness of Aid Like A Paycheck, MDRC conducted a mixed-methods study of biweekly disbursements at two community colleges (San Jacinto College and Houston Community College) in the metropolitan area of Houston, Texas. The study included qualitative research on the program's implementation and a randomized controlled trial to rigorously estimate the impacts of the policy on students' academic and financial outcomes. In addition, MDRC conducted qualitative research on the program and students enrolled in the West Hills Community College District, where the policy of biweekly disbursements was implemented in a different setting as a campus-wide policy, rather than for just a randomly selected subsample as at the two Texas colleges.

Sample

Detailed sampling information is found in the user guide.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2021-11-03

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Notes

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