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States awarded 11 percent more financial aid to students in the 2022–23 academic year than the year before, the largest year-over-year increase in a decade, according to a new survey from the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs.
Nationwide, states gave out a total of $16.6 billion in aid in 2022, up from $14.9 billion. Many states were operating with substantial budget surpluses that year as a result of federal COVID-19 subsidies.
The vast majority of state aid in 2022 took the form of grants, totaling approximately $14.4 billion. Of that, 74 percent was need-based aid and another 26 percent was non-need-based, or merit, aid. States also gave out $2.2 billion in loans, work-study and tuition waivers.
Nearly 70 percent of need-based state grants were awarded by eight states: California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Virginia, Washington, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. California alone gave nearly $3 billion in state financial aid, a year-over-year increase of about 20 percent.
Some states boosted financial aid grants more than others: Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Nevada all rose by more than 30 percent. Georgia’s rose by more than 1,000 percent after it implemented a need-based state grant program in 2022.
