Financing College: Exploring Pell Grant Awards

STA/ISS 313 - Spring 2023 - Project 1

Visualization Warriors

Intro: the pell data set.

• Contains information on Pell Grant awards to U.S. college students from 1999-2017

• Compilation of yearly data sets collected by U.S. Department of Education

• 6 columns: Name, State, Total Award, Year, Recipients, Session

Our Research Question + Goal

• Goal is to understand average Pell grant award distribution over time, explore reasoning for these patterns, and learn how this relates to higher education.

Change in Average Pell Grant Award Over Time

How does the average Pell grant award change over time based on the geographic region?

• Created two additional variables: average pell grant per school and region.

• Spatial graph showing average pell grant award across presidential terms for individual states in U.S.

• Line graph which explores time series progression of pell grant awards by region.

Average Pell Grant Award by State Across Presidential Terms

Average Pell Grant Award by Region Over Time

Change in Proportion of Students Receiving Pell Grants Over Time

How has the proportion of students receiving Pell Grants changed over time across states?

• Which states have seen greatest changes in their proportion of students receiving awards over time.

• Created the proportion_recieving_pell variable

Proportion of Students Receiving a Pell Grant in Each State Over Time

Proportion of Those Receiving Pell Grants by State in 2010 and 2017

Overall Conclusions

• Overall increase in amount of money awarded in pell grants over time.

• General decrease in the proportion of students receiving pell grants over time.

• This contradiction is likely due to increasing tuition costs over time.

Thank You!