There are growing concerns about the affordability of earning a college degree, yet most discussions focus on tuition and fees. While sticker prices, or published tuition and fees, have increased significantly over the past two decades, the amount students actually pay, known as net price, is lower today than it was 20 years ago. For many students, however, especially adult learners and those from low- and moderate-income backgrounds, college affordability is about more than just tuition and fees. Students must balance educational expenses with meeting the costs of basic needs, including housing, food, transportation, utilities, and childcare. Even if financial aid lowers the cost of college, low- and moderate-income students have limited financial resources to promptly and effectively respond to unexpected expenses. While such expenses can be relatively small, often under $1,000, they can lead students to seek high-interest credit options, withdraw from courses, or leave college altogether without earning a degree.

In response, colleges, states, and philanthropic organizations have implemented a range of emergency aid programs aimed at protecting and supporting students during times of financial instability, and evaluations of such programs have produced mixed results. In 2022, Ithaka S+R conducted a study on Georgia State University’s Panther Retention Grant program, in which we found that receiving a grant reduced students’ time to degree across the full sample and student subgroups, including for Pell recipients and students from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups. We also found that the program reduced cumulative debt for most student groups, likely because students, on average, graduated sooner and paid for fewer subsequent terms. However, the grant did not appear to increase graduation rates, nor did it improve next-term retention among students below senior standing.

Ithaka S+R built on this and other research by working with The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation (Petrie Foundation) and City University of New York (CUNY) to assess the impact of the Petrie Foundation’s Student Emergency Grant Fund on student academic outcomes. The fund provides participating New York City colleges and universities with money to disburse grants to students experiencing financial hardship to help cover non-tuition expenses. Among the participating institutions are 20 CUNY campuses, each of which operates and administers the program locally. Students submit an application describing their financial emergency, which is reviewed by campus staff before an application is either approved or rejected. Although participating campuses can award individual grants of up to $3,000, most cap awards at $1,500. Since 2017, the Petrie Foundation has allocated over $13 million to CUNY campuses to distribute emergency grants to students.

Today, we are publishing a report on the study’s findings, which include the following:

  • Among both associate and bachelor’s degree-seeking students, Student Emergency Grant Fund awards were effective at increasing short-term persistence, with the largest effects among first-year students. This pattern suggests that emergency aid may be particularly effective when students are just beginning their college careers. However, first-year students made up a disproportionately small share of grant applicants, especially in bachelor’s degree programs, suggesting that these students may be less likely than other students to face financial difficulties or may be less aware of emergency grant aid.
  • In addition to first-year students, Hispanic or Latino and female associate degree-seeking students experienced increases in short-term persistence. Among bachelor’s degree-seeking students, persistence effects were more broadly distributed across additional groups of students.
  • We found no effects on graduation among either associate or bachelor’s degree-seeking students. Along with no effects on longer-term persistence, these findings suggest that the benefits of emergency aid may diminish over time. Another explanation for the null graduation effects is that the largest persistence effects were experienced by students early in their academic careers and the follow-up period was shorter than the time needed to complete their degrees.
  • While our findings suggest that emergency aid is an important tool that can help students overcome an immediate financial crisis, it may be more effective when paired with additional supports that address other challenges accompanying financial hardship. This may be most relevant for adult learners, who made up nearly half of grant recipients and are more likely to balance employment, caregiving, and other family and financial responsibilities.

While the findings are not causal, they add to a growing body of research that collectively indicates that emergency grants can help students remain enrolled through periods of financial hardship and that pairing such aid with additional supports may strengthen its impact. Future research should explore which complementary supports sustain these benefits and ultimately translate to increases in graduation rates. This report provides timely evidence as states and institutions work to make a college degree more affordable and support students through financial emergencies as they make progress toward degree completion.