Changing Undergraduate Funding Mix and Graduate Degree Attainment

Previous studies of the role of college students’ funding sources in their educational outcomes have focused on individual funding sources and have not paid much attention to the mixing of multiple sources. As rising college tuition has heightened the financial burden on college students, the use of multiple funding sources has become an adaptive funding strategy for completing a college degree. Using discrete funding-source information from the National Survey of College Graduates, this study offers the first exploration of the change in funding mixes across three cohorts — born in 1953–1962, 1963–1972, and 1973–1982 respectively — and their association with graduate degree attainment. The proportion of students who utilized only one or two funding sources decreased, while those who juggled three or more sources increased. Contrary to the oldest cohort, for whom the association between undergraduate funding mix and graduate degree attainment was relatively weak, in the recent cohort, students mobilizing multiple sources became less likely to obtain a graduate degree compared to those fully funded by their families.