Academic Status and Integration of Financially-Aided Students: Insights for Retention Initiatives in Higher Education

Retention of student-beneficiaries of state-funded financial aid programs is important to ensure return of public investment. Recent studies suggest that there should be academic achievement and integration in college to guarantee their persistence and academic success. This study aimed to describe the academic status and integration of financially aided students in higher education. Also, this attempted to identify which aspect of integration is associated with academic status to generate insights relevant to developing retention initiatives. A descriptive-correlational design was employed in the research process, where a survey-questionnaire and actual academic evaluation records were used to gather needed data. All student-grantees of a state-funded financial aid program were invited to take part in accomplishing the questionnaire. Frequency count and percentage were used to summarize the two sets of nominal data and the Pearson chi-square test of association was used for correlation. Findings revealed that there was increasing attrition of the financially-aided students where specific issues on personal-social and institutional aspects of integration were noted. Also, health-related concerns of the students were found to be significantly associated with academic status. All these findings inform that retention in higher education for financially-aided students is much more complex than retention of regular, non-financially aided students, since the latter requires not only the usual student support services but also coordination of all stakeholders in the proper design and implementation of a financial aid program.