Filling the Gap: The Use of Intentional and Incidental Need-Meeting Financial Aid

When measuring institutional aid awards that address financial need, some researchers count all awards distributed based upon need-based criteria while other researchers count any awards that meet need. The sole use of either measure will omit key information, so we present two new measures—intentional and incidental need-meeting aid—that can be used effectively in combination. Our empirical analyses find that incidental aid comprises 46% of need-meeting institutional aid but relative to intentional aid, it is less targeted on students with the greatest need, first generation students, and underrepresented minorities and more targeted on students with high SAT scores.