We examine how the racial wealth gap interacts with financial aid in American higher education to generate a disparate impact on college access and outcomes. Retirement savings and home equity are excluded from the formula used to estimate the amount a family can afford to pay. All else equal, omitting those assets mechanically increases the financial aid available to families that hold them. White families are more likely to own those assets and in larger amounts. We document this issue and explore its relationship with observed differences in college attendance, types of institutions attended, degrees attained, and education debt using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We show that this treatment of assets provides an implicit subsidy worth thousands of dollars annually to students from families with above-median incomes. White students receive larger subsidies relative to Black students and Hispanic students with similar family incomes, and this gap in subsidies is associated with disadvantages in educational advancement and student loan levels. It may explain 10 percent to 15 percent of white students’ advantage in these outcomes relative to Black students and Hispanic students.

中文翻译：

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种族贫富差距、经济援助和大学入学机会

我们研究了种族贫富差距如何与美国高等教育中的经济援助相互作用，从而对大学入学机会和结果产生不同的影响。用于估计家庭负担能力的公式不包括退休储蓄和房屋净值。在其他条件相同的情况下，忽略这些资产会机械地增加持有这些资产的家庭可获得的经济援助。白人家庭更有可能拥有这些资产，而且数量更大。我们记录了这个问题，并利用来自消费者财务调查 (SCF)、国家高等教育学生资助研究 (NPSAS) 和收入动态小组研究（PSID）。我们表明，这种资产处理方式每年为来自中等收入以上家庭的学生提供了价值数千美元的隐性补贴。相对于家庭收入相似的黑人学生和西班牙裔学生，白人学生获得的补贴更大，这种补贴差距与教育进步和学生贷款水平的劣势有关。这可以解释为什么白人学生在这些结果中相对于黑人学生和西班牙裔学生有 10% 到 15% 的优势。