IS SCHOOL OUT FOR THE SUMMER? - THE IMPACT OF YEAR-ROUND PELL GRANTS ON ACADEMIC AND EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

Oct 15, 2026

Despite being the largest source of U.S. financial aid for low-income students, the traditional Pell Grant lacked summer tuition support within the same academic year. Year-round Pell (YRP) was introduced in 2009–10 and 2010–11, granting an additional award for students meeting full-time and summer-credit eligibility requirements. Using community-college administrative data and a difference-in-differences design, the study finds YRP increases summer enrollment and diploma completion, while also affecting transfer probabilities and subsequent earnings.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages29

Reading Time1 h 13 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Pell Grant limitation and year-round Pell implementation

Research questions and contribution

Empirical strategy and findings

| | IS SCHOOL OUT FOR THE SUMMER? THE IMPACT OF YEAR-ROUND PELL GRANTS ON ACADEMIC AND EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS | | --- | --- | Vivian Yuen Ting Liu Community College Research Center Teachers College Columbia University New York, NY 10027 [ytl2102@columbia.edu](ytl2102@columbia.edu) Abstract Despite having been the largest source of ﬁnancial aid to lowincome college students in the United States, the traditional Pell Grant had one major limitation: If students enrolled in two semesters full-time, they would not have had any tuition support for the summer term of the same academic year. The year-round Pell (YRP) was implemented in the academic years 2009–10 and 2010–11 to provide a second Pell Grant to students who enrolled in more than twenty-four credits prior to the third semester and in at least six credits during the summer term. Using a state administrative dataset from a community college system, this paper uses adiﬀerence-in-diﬀerences approach to examine the credit, credential completion, and labor market outcomes resulting from the YRP. The study ﬁnds that for each $1,000 of additional YRP grant funding, summer enrollment increases by 28 percentage points, diploma completion rates increase by 1.6 percentage points, and third-year earnings from college entry increase by $200 . For YRPeligible students who started in a short-term program, the gains are a 2 percentage point higher certiﬁcate attainment rate, 3.6 percentage point increase in associate degree completion, and no effect on four-year transfer rates. [https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00277](https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00277) © 2018 Association for Education Finance and Policy 1. INTRODUCTION The Pell Grant is the largest source of federal ﬁnancial aid for low-income college students, allocating over $28 billion in the 2015–16 academic year to 7.6 million students, most of whom had annual family incomes below $50,000 (Dynarski and Scott-Clayton 2013) . By lowering the cost of education for low-income students, the Pell Grant program aims to encourage enrollment and completion among those who face the highest ﬁnancial obstacles. Although the traditional Pell Grant covered a substantial proportion of community college tuition, the maximum ﬁnancial aid a student could receive amounted to only two semesters’ worth of full-time credits, without any support for summer courses. In light of this limitation, the year-round Pell (YRP) was implemented in academic years 2009–10 and 2010–11, and allowed eligible students during this period to receive a second Pell Grant in the same academic year to cover summer tuition. To ensure the grant was used toward degree acceleration, students were only eligible for the second award if they attended college full-time for two terms, and subsequently enrolled in at least six credits in the last term of the same academic year. Although the YRP program ended in 2011, Congress reinstated it in May 2017, and summer Pell Grants became available again beginning 1 July 2017. Given the potential beneﬁts ofthe YRP and the limited literature on this topic, this study examines the causal eﬀects ofthe YRP. A major contribution of this paper is that it is the ﬁrst to examine YRP outcomes beyond the ﬁrst summer, and it investigates results such as short-term credit accumulation, credential attainment, transfer rate, ﬁnancial aid, and employment outcomes during college in subsequent terms. Secondly, this paper contributes to the body of literature on grant aid by examining the potential eﬀect of grant aid on infra-marginal students—students whose decisions to enroll are not aﬀected by additional grants (Denning 2019). Denning argues that ﬁnancial aid may increase completion through initial enrollment (extensive eﬀect) or through improving outcomes of students whose initial enrollment is not inﬂuenced by ﬁnancial aid (intensive eﬀect) . Most studies examining the eﬀect of ﬁnancial aid estimate the combi

FAQs

What problem does the traditional Pell Grant have for summer enrollment?

Under the traditional Pell Grant, students receiving full-time Pell across two semesters did not receive tuition support for the summer term within the same academic year.

How was the year-round Pell (YRP) designed to provide summer support?

YRP provided a second Pell Grant in the same academic year for eligible students who attended full-time for two terms and enrolled in at least six credits during the summer term.

What impacts does the study report from additional YRP funding?

For each $1,000 of additional YRP grant funding, summer enrollment increases by 28 percentage points and diploma completion rates rise by 1.6 percentage points, with higher third-year earnings from college entry.

Oct 15, 2026

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