A new state-based study found that students selected for financial aid verification were 4.9% less likely to enroll in college than those not flagged for the review — and that the impact was particularly acute for underserved student populations.
The report, based on data collected from recent high school graduates in Tennessee, aims to provide documentation of the disparate impacts of verification and offer estimates on the college enrollment decisions of students selected for verification.
“We acknowledge that verification serves an important role in protecting taxpayers’ investment in higher education, but we believe our findings provide convincing evidence that selection for verification is associated with worse enrollment outcomes for students and is more harmful for some students than others,” the authors wrote.
If a student is not selected for verification, they decide whether to enroll based on their financial aid offer, among other factors. But those students selected for verification, which the Department of Education (ED) uses to corroborate an individual’s financial aid eligibility, can be dogged with an exhaustive process in order to receive an aid offer that will impact their enrollment decisions.