New Report on Further Education after Earning a Bachelor’s Degree

 Twenty-three percent of 2015–16 bachelor’s degree earners enrolled in 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 did not.

A new National Center for Education Statistics Data Point, One Year Later: Relationship Between 2015–16 Bachelor’s Degree Recipient Enrollment in Further Education and Pell Grant Receipt, examines education after earning a bachelor’s degree by prior receipt of a Pell Grant. The report includes information on enrollment and financial aid status for students pursuing further education the year after earning bachelor’s degrees. It compares students who had a Pell Grant as undergraduates to those who did not.

The findings include the following:

• 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).
• 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.
• A higher percentage of students who received a Pell Grant for their 2015–16 bachelor’s degree used federal loans to pay for their further education than students who did not.

This report uses data from the 2016/17 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:16/17) which followed a cohort of 2015–16 bachelor’s degree recipients one year later in 2017.