The purpose of this study was to describe the state competitive scholarship programs of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and West Virginia. The coordination and the impact of the respective programs at selected public and non-public colleges and universities within the four states were also studied. The description of the state competitive scholarship programs consisted of the: (1) origin and purpose, (2) superior body and professional staff, (3) selection of the recipients, (4) growth, (5) administration, (6) state grant and/or state loan program(s), (7) problems, (8) recommendations, and (9) future directions. The descriptive information was gathered by private interviews with each of the four state competitive scholarship directors and the eight college student financial aid directors.The review of related literature consisted of three parts: (1) the significance of the state scholarship programs, (2) the National Association of State Scholarship Programs, (3) federal student financial aid programs.The conclusions of the study were:1. The state competitive scholarship programs have a common objective to assist qualified students obtain a college education.2. The monetary scholarships are awarded according to academic ability and demonstrated financial need relative to the approved college choice.3. Applicants who are academically qualified but unable to demonstrate financial need are awarded honorary scholarships.4. Sufficient monies should be available to assist applicants at in-state institutions before consideration be given to using scholarships at out-of-state institutions.5. Concentrated efforts are made to simplify application procedures for state scholarships.6. The state scholarship programs are free from political pressure in the selection of recipients.7. The state grant awards should be used at approved public and non-public institutions.8. The state grant program should make awards on the demonstration of financial need relative to the approved college choice.9. The state loan program should make student loans only on the basis of financial need.10. The state scholarship program directors agreed that the:A. high school counselors are instrumental in the success of the state scholarship program;B. high school counselors should meet at least annually with the state scholarship personnel;C. college student financial aids officers usually coordinate the state scholarship programs satisfactorily;D. college student financial aids officers should meet at least annually with the state scholarship personnel;E. college student financial aids officer who is a generalist is more competent than a specialist11. The college student financial aids officers were in disagreement regarding the success of the state scholarship program in providing a free choice of colleges within the state.12. The college student financial aids directors agreed that an institutional scholarship should beto a state scholar if the additional need was demonstrated.13. Coordination should exist between the United States Office of Education and the state scholarship offices since the mutual concern is to financially assist qualified applicants.A recommended basic design for a state competitive scholarship program was a part of the study. The design was primarily based upon the characteristics of the Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and West Virginia programs.The recommendations for further study are:1. A descriptive study of selected competitive scholarship programs of states which have membership another geographical association of student financial aid administrators.2. An in-depth study of the grant programs which are administered by the state scholarship commissions.3. A study to analyze a state scholarship or grant program for graduate students.4. An attitudinal study of former college students who are now repaying the guaranteed bank loans.5. A study to determine why there has been no apparent coordination between the federal government and the state scholarship commissions.

Thesis (M.S.E.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-45).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-178). Also available on the World Wide Web.

by Loh Shing Wai. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-54). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.vi / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Technology Transfer --- p.1 / Purpose of Study --- p.3 / Scope of Study --- p.5 / Approach and Methodology --- p.5 / Chapter II. --- BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE STUDENT FINANCIAL ASSISATANCE AGENCY --- p.7 / Historical Background --- p.7 / Organization Structure and Staffing --- p.9 / "Vision, Mission and Values" --- p.10 / Corporate Culture --- p.12 / Local Student Finance Scheme --- p.13 / Chapter III. --- ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS --- p.15 / External Environment --- p.15 / Internal Environment --- p.16 / Chapter IV --- STUDENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM --- p.18 / Existing IT Environment --- p.18 / Development of Proposed System --- p.19 / System Objectives --- p.20 / Project Schedule --- p.20 / Project Control --- p.21 / Development Approach --- p.22 / Chapter V. --- FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS / IT Project Implementation Issues --- p.23 / Merging the Islands of Automation --- p.23 / Assimilating Emerging Technologies --- p.23 / Partnership of Three Constituencies --- p.24 / Findings --- p.25 / Analysis --- p.26 / Leadership --- p.26 / Business Changes --- p.28 / Project Team --- p.29 / Team Spirit --- p.31 / Lack of Confidence --- p.31 / Comments from Focus Group --- p.33 / Chapter VI. --- CONCLUSION --- p.35 / Chapter VII. --- POSSIBLE COURSES OF ACTIONS AND RECOMMENDATION --- p.38 / Leadership Style --- p.38 / Roles of Senior Manager --- p.39 / User Representative --- p.39 / Project Team --- p.40 / Communication Strategy --- p.40 / User Training --- p.44 / User Manuals/Documentation --- p.44 / APPENDICES --- p.45 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.49

NSFAS is a government-funded scheme that was established in 1996 with the objective of assisting financially needy students who are able to perform well academically, but are financially disadvantaged, and cannot afford higher education. The scheme was introduced as a mechanism to develop the country’s human capital and to also eradicate inequalities leading to poverty, crime, skill shortages and high levels of unemployment. This research was encouraged by the realization of the high drop-out rates amongst students funded by NSFAS. The research, therefore, wanted to investigate the adequacy of NSFAS in qualification completion, specifically at NMMU. In order to elicit responses from participants, a mixed method, with both quantitative and qualitative approaches was preferred. Questionnaires containing closed and open-ended questions were used as instruments for collecting data from participants. The study used a selected group of participants, with certain characteristics; and hence, the study was a purposive study. Five main areas were formulated as a framework to present the findings. The five areas involved the economic background of parents of NSFAS recipients, challenges faced by NSFAS recipients, as well as to determine whether NSFAS recipients were motivated to work hard as a result of attaining financial assistance. The last two areas involved reasons for NSFAS recipients to drop out and lastly the available support for NSFAS recipients. In relation to the economic background of parents of NSFAS recipients, findings revealed that almost 50 percent of their guardians were employed, with 26 percent of them being in skilled positions. The challenges faced by NSFAS recipients, were revealed, as being both academic and financial. About 52 percent of participants did not obtain full funding; and therefore, were expected to contribute towards their uncovered expenses. These participants were eventually faced with financial challenges that led them to drop out. To determine whether participants were motivated to work hard, as a result of acquiring financial assistance from NSFAS, about 52 percent of participants agreed to have received financial relief from NSFAS, but were not motivated to work hard. Findings revealed different reasons that led students funded by NSFAS to drop out before qualifying. The reasons included less Lecturer support (17.6 percent), unbearable workload (51.8 percent), bad qualification choice and financial challenges (21.4 percent). The last main area focused on available support from NSFAS as an Organisation to its recipients. Findings revealed no structured support system in place from NSFAS that was directed specifically to see its recipients succeed. Findings of the study can be used to identify students funded by NSFAS who might drop out before finishing their intended qualification. The findings could also guide NSFAS on what the student requirements are – in order to qualify. Recommendations on drop-out reductions and retention successes from local and international countries are provided. Further recommendations directed to NSFAS as a provider and it’s recipients are also provided.

This paper consists of three independent, quantitative studies on three higher education policy issues in the U.S. : 1) Performance-based Financial Aid, 2) Community College Degree Attainment, and 3) Dual Enrollment. The first essay discusses how low-income students in free college programs respond to strict achievement standards exceeding the minimum requirement for federal financial aid. To address this question, I examined the impact of a new credit completion requirement for Indiana’s statewide free college program. This program is only available for low-income students and recently increased the number of credits required for maintaining eligibility from “taking” 24 credits per year to “earning” 30 credits per year in 2013. Using Indiana’s statewide administrative data on college students, I exploit the sudden change in the eligibility renewal rule to identify the causal effects of the requirement on their postsecondary outcomes. I found that the new rule increased the likelihood of completing a bachelor’s degree within four years by 2.5 percentage points. At two-year institutions, the policy had mixed impacts, increasing the chance of graduation within two years by 2.9 percentage points but also lowered the second-year persistence rate by 3.7 percentage points. Meanwhile, the number of of degree completers within five years remained unchanged in both the sectors, suggesting that strict achievement requirements only improve program efficiency but not overall productivity in terms of degree attainment. Lastly, the policy effects are largely driven by community college students and students whose high school GPA is at or below the median. This implies that schooling decisions that the policy is intended to influence are mostly concentrated among those students. In the second essay, I discuss how well machine learning (ML) techniques predict the chance of postsecondary credential attainment for students who started at community colleges. Among community college leaders and others interested in reforms to improve student success, there is growing interest in adopting ML techniques to predict credential completion. However, ML algorithms are often complex and are not readily accessible to practitioners for whom a simpler set of near-term measures may serve as sufficient predictors. This study compares the out-of-sample predictive power of early momentum metrics (EMMs)—13 near-term success measures suggested by the literature - with that of metrics from ML-based models that employ approximately 500 predictors for community college credential completion. Using transcript data from approximately 50,000 students at more than 30 community colleges in two states, I find that the EMMs that were modeled by logistic regression accurately predict completion for approximately 80% of students. This classification performance is comparable to that of the ML-based models. The EMMs even outperform the ML-based models in its ability to approximate the actual probability of degree completion. These findings suggest that EMMs are useful predictors for credential completion and that the marginal gain from using an ML-based model over EMMs is small for credential completion prediction when additional predictors do not have strong rationales to be included in an ML-based model, no matter how large the number of those predictors may be. The third essay focuses on dual enrollment programs at community colleges. The number of high students taking college courses has grown dramatically over the past two decades but little is known about their long-term educational outcomes. Using student-level data obtained from the National Student Clearinghouse, this study provides state-level descriptive analyses on the demographic characteristics of dual-enrolled students, as well as their educational attainment statuses in their early 20s. We tracked more than 200,000 high school students who first took a community college course in fall 2010 for six years, through summer 2016 (five years after high school). Eighty-eight percent of these students continued in college after high school, and most earned a certificate or degree or transferred from a two-year college to a four-year college within five years. What type of college former dual enrollment students attended after high school and how many completed a college credential varied greatly by state, and many states showed big disparities in credential completion rates between lower and higher income students.

Thesis (MPA)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Student Financial Support Schemes (SFSS) have become increasingly important in providing financial assistance for students pursuing higher education, in both developed and developing countries. SFSSs were first established in the 1950s. The years that followed saw an increase steady expansion of student loan programs, through the introduction of student loans in more countries and expansion in the number of loans available in relation to their size and new expanded approach. The trend was in response to higher education expansion, combined with increasing financial toughness and concern for equity, while at the same time there was a surge of interest in student loans in the late 1980s and 1990s, with new programs introduced in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom; several countries in eastern Europe, considering introducing student loans for the first time; and some developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America establishing or expanding student loan programs. The need for financial assistance is to enable students from low-income families to meet direct and indirect costs of higher education, and to ensure equality of opportunity, equity, and social justice. Recent arguments focused on whether student financial supports should be provided by governments, private agencies, employers, or institutions, and whether it should be in the form of scholarships, bursaries, grants either available to all students and or means-tested or fully repayable loans. Increasingly, debates also surrounds the question of how student loans should be administered in particular, eligibility and terms of repayment of loans, appropriate rates of interest, and mechanisms to target disadvantaged students while minimising default rates. Firstly, this study did a comparison between the SFSSs of the four different countries. Secondly, the best practices were identified and the Namibian case study was evaluated against the four countries. Lastly, some conclusions and recommendations were made that are aimed to improve the SFSS in Namibia. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Studente finansiële ondersteuningskemas in ontwikkelde en onder ontwikkelende lande lewer ‘n belangrike bydrae tot die finansiële ondersteuning van studente in höer onderwys. Studente finansiële skemas is tot stand gebring in die 1950s. In die daarop volgende dekades het daar ‘n enorme groei plaasgevind in die daarstelling van studente leningskemas. Nie net het die aantal leningskemas vermeerder nie, maar meer en meer lande het van die benadering gebruik gemaak. Gedurende die 1980s en 1990s was daar ‘n toename in studentegetalle in höer onderwys wat gevolglik gelei het tot ‘n toename in finansiële ondersteuning van studente. Die implementering van nuwe programme in Australië, Nieu-Seeland en die Verenigde Koninkryke het gelei tot ‘n toename in finansiële ondersteuningskemas van studente. Verskeie lande in Europa het oorweging geskend aan die implementering van finansiële ondersteuning van studente tewyl onder ontwikkelende lande in Asië, Afrika en Latyns Amerika oorweging geskenk het aan die uitbreiding van finansiële ondersteuningskemas aan benadeelde en opkomende studente. Finansiële ondersteuning van behoeftige studente is gedoen om die direkte en indirekte koste verbonde aan onderwys te dek, gelyke geleenthede tot onderwys te skep, toegang tot ondewys te verbreed en om sosiale geregtigheid te verseker. ‘n Debat het egter onstaan oor wie verantwoordelikheid moet aanvaar vir die toekenning van studiebeurse, lenings of skenkings aan studente. In die verband is daar spesifiek gevra oor watter bydrae instellings in die openbare en privaat sektore maak tot finansiële ondersteuning van studente. Verdere aangeleenthede wat tydens die debat geopper word is vrae soos, wie moet verantwoordelikheid aanvaar vir die bestuur van sodanige finansiële skemas, lenings, die rentekoers ter sprake by die terugbetaling van die lenings en watter metodes kan gebruik word in die geval van minder gegoede studente wat nie hul finansiële terugbetaling ooreenkomste kan na kom nie. Die studie is onderneem na aanleiding van ‘n vergelykende studie tussen vier verskillende lande se finansiële ondersteuningskemas. Daarna is ‘n beste praktyk ontwikkel waarteen die Namibiese finansiële ondersteuning skema geevalueer is. Sekere gevolgtrekkings en aanbevelings is gemaak om die bestaande skema te verbeter.

Organisational Leadership / The purpose of this study is to determine which factors influence the formation of intention to adopt the NSFAS online financial application system at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), and to identify barriers to adoption experienced by the NSFAS applicants at TUT. To achieve these objectives, the study utilised the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Ram & Sheth (1989) concept of barriers to model TUT NSFAS adoption patterns. To test this conceptual framework, a descriptive quantitative research survey approach was conducted. Data was collected through self-completion structured questionnaires from a sample of 644 TUT students in September 2015. SPSS Version 23 and STATA 12 were utilised to conduct descriptive and multivariate analyses including correlations and structural equation modelling respectively.

This paper determines relationships between three elements of the American policy process: legislature, agency, and administrative clientele. It concerns interrelationships between these elements and their affect to agency functions. A model is constructed; revealing the policy process, illustrating behavior patterns responsible for normal functioning and failure of policies and programs. The model develops through study of a single policy area. Supplemental data are provided from a survey. The paper concludes that the process is based on legislation-- causing activity in an agency or substantial change in programs; agency actions, seated in its own organizational objectives, and resultant to internal conflicts; and by clientele behavior, determined by agency actions or inactions. This model may help predicting policy outcomes, but only after similar but more comprehensive studies.

Thesis (M. Dev. (Planning and Management)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was introduced in South Africa in 1999. Despite two decades of implementation—and some notable successes—the NSFAS has been critiqued for its overall “effectiveness” (McKay, Naidoo & Simpson 2018:25-27). This study investigated the effectiveness of NSFAS from the perspective of skills development among students at the University of Limpopo (UL). The study used a qualitative research design which purposively selected participants using a semi-structured interview instrument. The purposive sampling included nine NSFAS beneficiaries from the Faculties of Management and Law and Science and Agriculture and six NSFAS administrators working at UL. The study applied thematic analysis to analyse the collected data. The analysis enabled insights into the effectiveness of NSFAS on skills development among a limited sample at UL to be presented. The findings suggest that NSFAS funding contributes towards soft-skills development of student beneficiaries. There was less evidence that NSFAS funding contributed to hard-skills development. The study recommends that UL could introduce a number of measures to reinforce the soft-skills development that NSFAS catalysed such as internal mentorship schemes for students and/or engaged collaborations with non-academic partners to reinforce the soft-skills components of students learning experience. Due to the localised nature and small size it is suggested that further research is warranted into the impact of NSFAS on students soft-skills development at a broader scale. During the research process, the ethical rules and regulations dictated by the Turfloop Research and Ethics Committee (TREC) were complied with and the suggested protocols of the experiences of educational researchers in the use of case study design during the COVID-19 pandemic were also observed and adhered to.