Little is known about the effects of need-based financial aid disbursed late into college and how students respond when they approach lifetime limits for receiving aid. I exploit changes to federal Pell Grant eligibility rules that reduced the lifetime availability for grant aid from 9 to 6 full-time-equivalent years to examine these questions. Using data from the University System of Georgia and a matched difference-in-differences research design, I compare student outcomes before versus after the rule change for Pell recipients affected and unaffected by the new policy. Risk of aid exhaustion due to the policy change led students to increase their academic effort, as measured by term-over-term re-enrollment and term credits attempted and earned. I find weak evidence that the policy change accelerated time to completion and no evidence that it increased or decreased degree attainment overall. These findings indicate that aid disbursement policies and lifetime aid limits can impact the cost-effectiveness of aid expenditures and the efficiency of college degree production.

中文翻译：

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帮助还是劝阻？降低基于需求的援助的终身资格限制对学士学位获得和完成时间的影响

人们对到大学后期分配基于需求的经济援助的效果以及学生在达到终身接受援助极限时的反应方式知之甚少。我利用对联邦佩尔助学金资格规则的更改，将授予助学金的终身可用性从9个全日制等效年减少到6个全日制等效年，以研究这些问题。使用佐治亚大学系统的数据和相匹配的差异研究设计，我比较了受到新政策影响和未受到影响的佩尔接受者规则更改前后的学生成绩。政策变化导致的援助枯竭风险使学生增加了学业努力，这是通过按学期重新招生以及尝试和获得的学分来衡量的。我发现证据不足，表明政策变更会加快完成时间，而没有证据表明政策变更总体上会增加或减少。这些发现表明，援助支出政策和终生援助限额可能会影响援助支出的成本效益和大学学位生产的效率。