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A sign saying "we did it" with an asterisk on a campus building

The number of Pell-eligible students soared at many colleges this fall, likely due to a formula change in the new FAFSA.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | sanchesnet1 and Peter Spiro/iStock/Getty Images

After a year of dour predictions that the botched rollout of the new federal aid form would drive low-income students away from college, higher ed institutions this fall are proudly highlighting significant increases in the number of Pell-eligible students in the Class of 2028.

Georgetown University boasted that its first-year class includes the “highest number of Pell-eligible students in more than a decade.” The University of Georgia celebrated a 22 percent year-over-year increase in first-year students receiving Pell Grants and $9 million additional federal dollars in students’ pockets. Temple University noted a 38 percent surge in Pell students from last year, bringing its population of grant recipients to a historic high.

But at this point, it’s hard to tell how much of that growth has to do with institutional strategy.

Congress overhauled the formula determining Pell eligibility as part of the law making over the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. That revised formula was meant to expand eligibility to a much wider share of low- and middle-income families, as well as open the grant to incarcerated students, who were previously blocked from participating.

According to the Education Department, that effort paid off to the tune of 560,000 more Pell-eligible students—a 7 percent increase from 2023–24 and nearly twice the number predicted in a report from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association last October. An Education Department spokesperson said the formula change has led to a 10 percent increase in the number of students set to actually receive Pell Grants this year—which, he added, is historically a “leading indicator of enrollment patterns among students who are likely to receive financial aid.” At private, nonprofit four-year colleges, that number is up by more than 14 percent. More than six million students received the Pell Grant in 2022–23, about a third of all undergraduates.

The historic expansion of Pell eligibility is a rare bright spot in the otherwise disastrous federal aid form overhaul. But the raising of that bar doesn’t necessarily mean individual institutions are enrolling a higher share of low- and middle-income students than last year.

Sarah Turner, professor of economics and education at the University of Virginia, said while institutions may have had some role in their Pell surges, the FAFSA formula change had an undeniably large one. She cautioned against correlating a change in colleges’ socioeconomic makeup with an increase in their share of Pell students this year.

“I don’t want to take away from real institutional efforts to recruit, admit and matriculate low- and moderate-income students,” she said. “But it is possible that the institutions admitted practically the same students; we just shifted the bar mechanically … Colleges could be claiming a victory where there actually is very little change.”

A Need for ‘Context’

One year after the Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action, there are more eyes than usual on institutions’ demographics. And after last year’s bungled rollout of the new FAFSA, sustained—or increased—Pell numbers could be read as a sign of an institution’s ability to weather that storm.

Teresa Valerio Parrot, co-founder and principal of the higher ed communications firm TVP Communications, said with more attention being paid, colleges are more likely to point to their growing Pell student populations.

“There is more interest in the disaggregation of [enrollment] data than in past years,” said Valerio Parrot, who also writes the “Call to Action” blog for Inside Higher Ed. “A number of audiences want to be soothed that we’re still educating the students we’ve always served, and a number of institutions are trying to affirm that they’re still doing the critical work they’ve always done.”

But she added that some of the messaging around that growth elides a simple fact: It’s not yet clear what caused it.

“I’m always a fan of institutions sharing good news, but they need to put it in context,” she said.

Jumping the Gun

The headwinds of the past year have also had a significant impact on institutional strategies to recruit more low-income students. The end of affirmative action put a spotlight on socioeconomic diversity as a race-neutral alternative, and many colleges have made sizable investments to buff up their financial aid offerings—including by expanding eligibility for tuition remission, which may have drawn more low-income students to campuses in a year when a confluence of challenges made that a daunting task.

Turner, of UVA, said that as of now, the available data is too limited to say whether those efforts have had much of an effect.

“It is complicated, and there are a lot of moving pieces. I’d love to unwind this, and I don’t think anyone has yet,” Turner said. “I don’t want to be the arrogant person who says colleges’ claims are all fictitious, because they’re probably not. But this is why we should be cautious in proclaiming victory in the Pell share numbers.”

Colleges could clarify this disparity by releasing additional data, namely enrollment breakdowns by income level alongside their changes in Pell students. But Turner said she’s not sure when, or whether, institutions will do so—and for good reason.

“It’s been a pretty tough season for those in financial aid offices,” she said. “Demanding more data just because some researcher wants to sort out some Pell share measure is maybe not what institutional research people want to hear right now.”

The important question, Valerio Parrot said, is not how much the changes of the past year boosted Pell numbers; it’s how committed an institution is to sustaining that growth and supporting those students.

“Hope should never be a strategy to enroll and retain students; luck shouldn’t be, either,” she said. “These institutions may be doing great work, but they have to be able to show something for it in the long term. That’s the best messaging strategy.”

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