Bureaucracy and Burden: Understanding Take-up of a Need-Based Financial Aid Program

Social programs, including college financial aid, often reach only a fraction of eligible beneficiaries. We examine this problem through the lens of Michigan’s Tuition Incentive Program (TIP), a state need-based grant aid program. We conduct a large-scale mixed-methods study using data on more than 1 million Michigan public school students and 55 interviews with program administrators, high school counselors, and financial aid staff. We find that while one third of Michigan high school graduates are eligible for TIP, only ~30% of TIP-eligible community college students receive the aid, limiting its impact on affordability. We identify key barriers that shape take-up: the presence of administrative burdens and fractured and ill-defined administrative responsibility, which constrains the ability of front-line administrators to alleviate these burdens.