Semester
Fall
Date of Graduation
2019
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Type
PhD
College
College of Education and Human Services
Department
Curriculum & Instruction/Literacy Studies
Committee Chair
Rodney P. Hughes
Committee Co-Chair
Nathan Sorber
Committee Member
Erin McHenry-Sorber
Committee Member
Robert Duval
Abstract
This dissertation is an empirical investigation of student level observations of 11 cohorts of first-time full-time freshmen from a public, land-grant, research university in Appalachia. Complete with student financial aid offerings, socioeconomic status, and pre-college academic characteristics such as standardized test scores and high school GPA, I investigate the data to examine institutional behavior constrained by resource dependence. The variable of interest is institutional financial aid. Institutional financial aid awards are monetary concessions presented to students as a means to discount the overall price a student pays to enroll. As institutional aid is a direct mechanism through which the institution can influence a student’s decision to attend, I argue it is a mechanism through which researchers can shed light on institutional priorities and goals in the context of a resource dependent institution of higher education. As this data spans twelve years and provides both pre and post-recession (2009-10) observations, I gain great leverage in examining institutional aid awards longitudinally. I use multivariate regression and summary statistics to evaluate my research questions guided by a theoretical framework supported by extant financial aid literature.
Recommended Citation
Matyasovsky, Matthew G., "Cash for consideration? An examination of academics, demographics, and student socioeconomics in the provisioning of institutional aid." (2019). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 7395.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/7395
