D.C. Tuition Assistance Grants: Program May Increase College Choices, but a Few Program Procedures May Hinder Grant Receipt for Some Residents (open access)

D.C. Tuition Assistance Grants: Program May Increase College Choices, but a Few Program Procedures May Hinder Grant Receipt for Some Residents

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Twenty-one percent of grant-eligible applicants who did not use the District of Columbia's tuition assistance grant (TAG) funding to attend a participating college or university may have encountered such barriers as college entrance requirements and the absence of minority outreach programs. Whether enrollment caps at colleges posed a barrier for applicants is unclear. In the program's first year, 516 of the nearly 2,500 eligible applicants did not use the grants. About 21 percent of the institutions in which applicants expressed interest restrict the number of out-of-state students that they will accept, although the extent to which this played a role in limiting access to these institutions is unclear. Enrollment at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) changed little during the TAG program's first year. The TAG program and UDC appeared to serve different freshmen populations, which may account for the TAG program's minimal impact on UDC enrollment. Although concerns about TAG program administration were largely resolved with the revision of program regulations in December 2000, other administrative issues may hinder program operations, including the determination of applicant eligibility and the distribution of information on …
Date: December 26, 2001
Creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
System: The UNT Digital Library