One Year Later: Relationship Between 2015–16 Bachelor’s Degree Recipient Enrollment in Further Education and Pell Grant Receipt

This Data Point uses data from the 2016/17 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:16/17). The study is a national survey of students who earned a bachelor’s degree during the 2015–16 academic year. Students are surveyed at different time points to study change. The second collection was done in 2017, about 1 year after respondents earned bachelor’s degrees.

FIGURE 1. Among 2016–17 students seeking further education after their 2015–16 bachelor’s degree, percentage enrolled in further education, by control and level of institution, degree program, and undergraduate Pell Grant status: 2017

* Significantly different (p < .05) between those who received a Pell Grant and those who did not.
NOTE: Detail may not sum to 100 due to rounding. Although rounded numbers are displayed, the figures are based on unrounded data. Undergraduate certificate or degree includes students enrolled in an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, or undergraduate certificate or diploma program. Data include the approximately 23 percent of 2015–16 bachelor’s degree recipients who enrolled in a degree program within 1 year of earning their bachelor’s degree.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2016/17 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:16/17).

Data include information on enrollment for further education the year after earning bachelor’s degrees. Data also include the financial aid status of those students. Student, in this Data Point, refers to 2015–16 bachelor’s degree earners who sought more education the next year. Figures compare students who had a Pell Grant as undergraduates to those who did not.

What type of institutions do bachelor’s degree earners attend just after graduating? Do institution characteristics differ by Pell Grant receipt?

Twenty-three percent of 2015–16 bachelor’s degree earners enrolled for more education the next year. These students were nearly evenly split between those who had received a Pell Grant for their college degree and those who had not. (FIGURE 1).

About three quarters of students, whether or not they had Pell Grants, went on to programs for master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, or higher kinds of certificates.
Students who had a Pell Grant went on to master’s degree programs at higher rates (56 percent) than those who did not (50 percent). However, students with a Pell Grant entered doctoral programs at lower rates (14 percent) than those without them (21 percent).
Pell Grant receipt was also related to the type of institution students attended. Fifty percent of students with a Pell Grant and 54 percent of those without a Pell Grant went to a public 4-year institution.
Higher percentages of students with Pell Grants went to private for-profit institutions for further education (11 percent) than students without Pell Grants (4 percent).

FIGURE 2. Among 2016–17 students seeking further education after their 2015–16 bachelor’s degree, percentage who used selected financial aid in 2017, by undergraduate Pell Grant status: 2017

* Significantly different (p < .05) between those who received a Pell Grant and those who did not.
NOTE: Detail may not sum to 100 due to rounding. Undergraduate certificate or degree includes students enrolled in an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, or undergraduate certificate or diploma program. Data include the approximately 23 percent of 2015–16 bachelor’s degree recipients who enrolled in a degree program within 1 year of earning their bachelor’s degree.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2016/17 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:16/17).

Were students who received Pell Grants for their bachelor’s degree more or less likely to use scholarships, grants, or federal student loans to finance later education?

Overall, use of grants and scholarships in 2017 did not differ for students who had used and had not used Pell Grants for their bachelor’s degree (FIGURE 2).
A higher percentage of students who had a Pell Grant before 2016–17 used federal loans in 2017 compared to students who had not received a Pell Grant. Overall, 66 percent of students who had an earlier Pell Grant used federal loans in 2017. This is higher than the 38 percent of students who had not received a Pell Grant. This gap by Pell Grant receipt was observed across all degree types, ranging from 17 to 34 points.

To learn more about the data collection used in this report, visit https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/b&b/. For questions about content or to view this report online, go to https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2021411.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Data Points report on topics of current interest. This one was authored by Catharine Warner-Griffin of AnLar and Kim Standing of Westat. Data are from samples with margins of error. To see if estimates differ when margins of error are considered, statistical tests need to be done. Some apparent differences in estimates cannot be said to be different once these tests are used. All stated differences are statistically different at the .05 level. No tests were made for multiple comparisons. Efforts were also made to limit the effects of errors not related to sampling.