Diversity, College Costs, and Postsecondary Opportunity: An Examination of the Financial Nexus between College Choice and Persistence for African Americans and Whites

Historically, federal student aid focused on expanding financial access for low-income students, but this goal is no longer central to federal policy. This article examines how the financial reasons for choosing a college and the actual costs of attending college influence persistence by African Americans and Whites. It reveals diverse patterns of educational choice with continuities across the choice sequence. African Americans were more adversely influenced by grant inadequacy than Whites were. These findings support the argument that the decline in federal grants was a contributing factor to the gap in postsecondary opportunity that opened after 1980.