ALL THE DIFFERENCE: Students who earn good grades and are on track to graduate might drop out if they lose even small amounts of financial aid, according to a study published today by EAB, an education research firm. EAB surveyed more than 40,000 students and found that students with a GPA above 3.0 who lose $1,000 to $1,500 in financial aid are 2.5 percentage points more likely to drop out of school than their peers who have little or no change in aid. And small increases in aid correlate with student persistence. Hundreds of colleges around the country are experimenting with “emergency aid”—small influxes of money to help students cover expenses that could stand in the way of graduation.
