Billions of Aid Dollars Go to High

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A new report from the Century Foundation found that state and institutional grant aid too often flows to higher-income students who don’t need it, while low-income students continue to struggle with unmet need.

The analysis, released Thursday, shows that more than half of students from the top income quartile, 56 percent, receive grants that surpass their financial need, compared to a mere 0.2 percent of students from the bottom income quartile. That means that top income quartile students were 280 times more likely to receive grants that exceeded their level of need than their lowest income peers. The share of white students that receive grants beyond their needs (19 percent) far exceeds the share of Black of Hispanic students who receive such grants (5 p