The District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant (DCTAG) Program
Released: 2014-01-14T00:00:00

Background

The District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant (DCTAG) program was created in 1999 to address concerns about the public postsecondary education offerings available to District of Columbia residents.

In the 1990s, the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), which, at the time, was the only public institution of higher education (IHE) in Washington, DC, faced a series of obstacles that threatened its existence. In the midst of financial shortfalls across the District's government, the school's budget was severely reduced, from $76 million in FY1992 to $43 million in FY1995. In 1996, when UDC's budget was reduced by an additional $16.2 million, fall enrollment dropped from 10,000 students the previous year to 7,600 students. The next fall, acting UDC President Julius E. Nimmons, Jr. laid off 125 faculty members, nearly one-third of the institution's full-time faculty, as well as 200 of the university's 437 non-faculty employees. The school's accreditation, though thrown into doubt, was renewed in 1997. Despite reforms put into place after the reaccreditation, UDC remained under public scrutiny for several years.

As a possible indicator that the public higher education available in Washington, DC, did not meet their needs, District residents enrolled in postsecondary institutions outside of their home jurisdiction at a rate far higher than their peers elsewhere in the United States. In the fall of 1998, 3,116 District residents were enrolled as undergraduate freshmen in IHEs, of whom 1,163 (37%) attended public or private institutions in DC. The national average for postsecondary attendance within an individual's jurisdiction of residence that year was 82%, with Vermont's 54% in-state attendance ranking as the second lowest in the nation.

This disparity in college-attendance trends across states raised concerns about the cost for District students attending IHEs. In each of the 50 states, some form of public higher education is made available to in-state students at a lower cost than the price of tuition and fees offered to students from outside the state, thereby reducing the average total postsecondary education cost for residents of that jurisdiction. In academic year (AY) 1999–2000, "dependent undergraduates from the District of Columbia paid [an average of] $7,890 per year in tuition minus all grant aid … more than twice the national average" of $3,215 per student annually.

Although similar issues arising elsewhere in the United States might be rectified through the reallocation of resources among public IHEs and the development of policies at the state level, supporters of the program argued that both the District of Columbia's unique role and status as the nation's capital and the state of local governance required remedies of this sort to be achieved through federal action. In general, budgetary authority for Washington, DC, rests in the hands of Congress, as:

The Constitution gives Congress the power to "exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever" pertaining to the District of Columbia. In 1973, Congress granted the city limited home rule authority and empowered citizens of the District to elect a mayor and city council. However, Congress retained the authority to review and approve all District laws, including the District's annual budget.

While Congress retains the power to determine the appropriation and allocation of funds, it typically cedes much of the daily governance to local government. However, in the 1990s, troubled city services, a poor credit rating that hindered the District's ability to borrow funds, and an FY1995 budget deficit of $722 million led to federal intervention. Two pieces of legislation, the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act of 1995 ( P.L. 104-8 ) and the National Capital Revitalization Act of 1997 ( P.L. 105-33 ), increased the federal role in the governance of the District of Columbia. New oversight committees were formed and many of the "state functions" normally carried out by the District of Columbia's government were temporarily transferred to Congress.

As Congress attempted to rejuvenate the District of Columbia's local government and improve the standard of living for the average citizen, an increasing number of concerns were raised about the postsecondary education opportunities available to District residents. In March 1999, Washington, DC's Delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton and Representatives Tom Davis and Constance Morella introduced a bill that would create a program to provide support for higher education to DC residents.

Legislation

On November 12, 1999, the District of Columbia College Access Act ( P.L. 106-98 ) was signed into law, authorizing the DCTAG program for FY2000 to FY2005. Congress defined the program's purpose as "enabl[ing] college-bound residents of the District of Columbia to have greater choices among institutions of higher education."

The DCTAG program provides grants to District residents, regardless of need or merit, to attend eligible public and private not-for-profit IHEs in the United States. When the program was first enacted, $10,000 annual scholarships (with a cumulative cap of $50,000) were available exclusively for use at public IHEs in Maryland and Virginia, and annual grants of $2,500 (with a cumulative cap of $12,500) were available exclusively for tuition and fees at a limited number of private colleges and private historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in Maryland and Virginia. Both the $10,000 scholarship for attendance at a public not-for-profit school and the $2,500 grant for attendance at certain private schools were intended to assist DC high school graduates in pursuing a postsecondary education and to provide them with a "greater range of options" for their postsecondary education.

The act also included a provision (Section 3(c)(1)(a)(ii)) that permitted the mayor of the District of Columbia to broaden the list of public institutions eligible to receive program funds, which could include IHEs outside Maryland and Virginia. In May 2000, Mayor Anthony Williams exercised this administrative authority and expanded the program to provide up to $10,000 per student per year (with a cumulative cap of $50,000) toward the difference between in-state and out-of-state undergraduate tuition and fees at all public colleges and universities nationwide.

The District of Columbia College Access Improvement Act of 2002 ( P.L. 107-157 ) further amended the program to provide awards of up to $2,500 per student per year (with a cumulative cap of $12,500) to assist students with paying the tuition and fees for any private HBCU nationwide. The addition of these eligible institutions was intended to help expand DC residents' access to HBCUs nationwide.

Since its original authorization in 1999, the DCTAG program has been reauthorized twice, once in 2004 ( P.L. 108-457 ) and again in 2007 ( P.L. 110-97 ). The 2007 reauthorization extended the appropriation of funds for the DCTAG program through FY2012 and introduced a means-testing provision prohibiting Washington, DC, residents from families with taxable annual incomes of $1,000,000 or greater from receiving awards. The DCTAG program is currently operating under a Continuing Resolution ( P.L. 113-46 ).

Program Structure

Administration

The DCTAG program is administered by the mayor of the District of Columbia, through the Office of the State Superintendent of Education's (OSSE's) Higher Education Financial Services. As mandated by statute, the District of Columbia government established a dedicated account for program funds, with separate line items for federal appropriations, District government contributions, unobligated balances from prior appropriations, and interest earned on the balance. OSSE has taken the further step of creating two separate accounts, one for short-term expenditures (within 90 days) and one for longer-term needs, both of which can receive direct deposits from federal appropriations. If the funds made available for the program are not sufficient to fully support all applicants at the maximum allowable grant amount, the mayor is required to ratably reduce awards—first reducing those granted to first-time recipients and then those granted to renewing recipients. Should this be required, the mayor is authorized to apply ratable reductions based on student financial need and administrative burden.

Eligibility

Institution

The size of the DCTAG award that a District of Columbia resident can receive is based on the type of institution attended (see Table 1 ). District of Columbia residents are eligible to receive DCTAG funds in amounts not to exceed $10,000 per student per year (with a total per student cap of $50,000) to attend any public Title IV eligible four-year IHE in the United States. Because the UDC provides an in-state tuition rate for DC students, District of Columbia residents are specifically prohibited from using DCTAG funds to reduce the cost of attending UDC. Likewise, students may not use DCTAG funds to attend the Community College of the District of Columbia—the open-admission, two-year IHE that was split off from UDC in August 2009 as a separate institution—because it offers reduced tuition to residents of Washington, DC.

Private, nonprofit Title IV eligible HBCUs nationwide and private Title IV-eligible nonprofit IHEs in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area (defined as the District of Columbia; the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax in Virginia; Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia; and Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland) are eligible to accept DCTAG funds in amounts not to exceed $2,500 per student per year (with a total per student cap of $12,500).

Nationwide, public Title IV-eligible two-year IHEs are eligible to accept DCTAG funds in amounts not to exceed $2,500 per student per year (with a total per student cap of $10,000).

To receive funds under the DCTAG program, any of the aforementioned institutions, except HBCUs, are required to enter into an agreement with the mayor of the District of Columbia regarding reporting requirements and the institution's use of funds to supplement, not supplant assistance that it would otherwise provide eligible students.

Student

To become and remain eligible for a grant under the DCTAG program, a student must

be a resident of the District of Columbia; be a citizen, national, or permanent resident of the United States; be able to provide evidence from the Immigration and Naturalization Service that he or she is in the United States for other than a temporary purpose with the intention of becoming a citizen or permanent resident; or be a citizen of any one of the Freely Associated States; be enrolled or accepted for enrollment, on at least a half-time basis, in a degree, certificate, or other program (including a study-abroad program approved for credit by the student's home institution) leading to a recognized educational credential at an eligible institution; maintain satisfactory progress in his or her course of study, as defined by Section 484(c) of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended; not be in default on a federal student loan; be 24 years of age or younger at the time of initial application, unless enrolled in the program prior to the 2006–2007 academic year; have either graduated from a secondary school or received the equivalent of a secondary school diploma or have been accepted for enrollment as a freshman at an eligible institution; and be domiciled in the District of Columbia for not less than the 12 consecutive months preceding enrollment at an eligible IHE, if undergraduate study is started within three calendar years (excepting periods of National Service or service in the Armed Forces or the Peace Corps) of high school graduation or its equivalent or be domiciled in the District of Columbia for not less than five consecutive years preceding enrollment at an eligible IHE, if undergraduate study is started more than three calendar years after high school graduation or its equivalent.

Post-baccalaureate students who have already earned a bachelor's degree or students whose family's federal taxable income equals or exceeds $1,000,000 annually are ineligible to participate in the DCTAG program.

Application

To receive funds through the DCTAG program, an eligible student must

first submit a DC OneApp, the District of Columbia's online application that District residents use to apply for the District of Columbia's state-level higher education grant programs; then fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA); and finally, submit required supporting DC OneApp documents, including income or benefits verification or a document no older than 45 days from the date of the DC OneApp submission that reflects the name and address of either the applicant or their parent or legal guardian, proof of high school or equivalent completion (first-time applicants only), and a student aid report.

Payments

After a student submits a successful application and the grant size is determined, awards are paid directly to the eligible IHE at which the student is enrolled. In the case of public institutions, the grant may be no larger than the difference between the in-state and out-of-state tuition and fees, and in no case may the grant be larger than $10,000 per year, as previously indicated in Table 1 . Grants awarded to students attending school on a less than full-time basis are prorated.

To participate in the DCTAG program, institutions must complete (or have completed) a Program Participation Agreement; fill out a Minimum Requirements Invoice for a Public or a Private Institution, including the W-9 form; and email an invoice for eligible students.

Interaction with Federal Student Aid

Because DCTAG funds are not intended to cover the full cost of college attendance, students may seek additional sources of financial assistance. Title IV federal student aid programs, administered by the Department of Education, constitute a large share of such support. The maximum loan or grant amount for each of these programs is determined by a different need analysis calculation involving, but not limited to, the cost of attendance and the total estimated financial assistance from other sources. For the purpose of these calculations, funds received through the DCTAG program would most likely be considered either scholarships or state assistance, both of which are considered estimated financial aid. As a result, receiving a DCTAG award may reduce the federal student aid available to a student. For a list of additional student support available to District of Columbia residents, see the Appendix .

Appropriations

The DCTAG program is funded through annual appropriations, which are available until expended and do not expire at the end of each fiscal year. From the program's inception through FY2007, these funds were included in annual District of Columbia Appropriations Acts; beginning in 2008, program funds were appropriated through annual Federal Services and General Government Appropriations Acts. Between FY2010 and FY2013 appropriated funds for the DCTAG program either remained level or decreased through various acts and Continuing Resolutions. Table 2 details the funding levels for each year of the program's existence.

Because of the program's carryover authority, any funds remaining at the end of a fiscal year may be used to award grants in future years. Table 3 details the available and expended funds for FY2012 and FY2013.

Performance

Aside from general administrative duties that the District of Columbia must fulfill under the DCTAG program, the mayor must submit to Congress an annual report detailing the number of eligible students served and the amount of grant awards disbursed, any reduction in grant size, and the credentials earned by eligible student cohorts. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) also is required to monitor the program, particularly with respect to barriers to enrollment for program participants and overall program efficacy. In 2005, GAO released a report that recommended actions be taken to improve the way in which student data are verified, the reconciliation of cash balances against financial management system totals, and the models used to predict yearly awards. The District of Columbia's Office of the State Superintendent of Education reports that it has addressed all of GAO's concerns.

Students Served

As of April 2013, a total of 19,664 students have received approximately $317.5 million in DCTAG awards and have attended over 600 IHEs in 49 states. In AY2011–2012 alone, approximately $33.4 million in DCTAG funds supported 5,253 students enrolled in postsecondary institutions. In AY2011-2012, DCTAG recipients primarily choose to attend public IHEs and public HBCUs, as Figure 1 shows.

In the fall of 2010, 2,503 District of Columbia residents who had graduated from high school within the previous 12 months enrolled in Title IV-eligible two- or four-year degree-granting IHEs as freshmen. That same year, 1,448 recent graduates from Washington, DC, high schools received first-time DCTAG awards (see Table 4 ), meaning that approximately 58% of the recent high school graduates from Washington, DC, who enrolled as freshmen at eligible IHEs in 2010 received DCTAG funds. This figure does not include those students who enrolled at ineligible institutions or otherwise did not meet eligibility requirements. Therefore, the DCTAG program does appear to assist a relatively large number of those students choosing to pursue a postsecondary education at eligible IHEs shortly after graduating high school in financing their postsecondary education.

Awards Versus High School Enrollment

According to data collected in the American Community Survey, during the period from 2010 to 2012, an average of approximately 85% of District of Columbia residents who were enrolled in grades 9-12 attended public schools and 15% attended private schools. According to DCTAG program data, from AY2006–2007 through AY2011–2012, approximately 68% of DCTAG recipients had attended a DC public or charter high school, whereas approximately 27% had attended private schools.

Since its inception, DCTAG participation has increased, and the number of recent high school graduate participants also has increased significantly; however, participation rates have leveled off somewhat in recent years, as shown in Table 4 .

Grants by Ward

The District of Columbia is divided into eight subdivisions, or wards, each of which is home to approximately 75,000 residents. Every ward is represented in the DC Council by an elected councilmember, making wards discrete political units. Because household income, educational attainment, and other social factors vary greatly among the wards, measures of social equity are often calculated by ward.

OSSE data demonstrate how awards have been distributed across wards in the past several years. Table 5 compares the average median family income and the percentage of DCTAG recipients within each ward. The data seem to indicate that those wards with the lowest average median family income (i.e., wards 4, 5, 7, and 8) have a higher percentage of DCTAG recipients than those wards with the highest median family income (i.e., wards 1, 2, 3, and 6).

Graduation Rates

The most recent OSSE data available show that the six-year undergraduate graduation rate for DCTAG recipients is slightly below the national average. For instance, for the 2005 cohort, nationwide, 58.3% of students completed their bachelor's degree within six years of enrollment, whereas 48.5% of DCTAG recipients completed their bachelor's degree within six years of enrollment.

Analysis of Grant Benefits

While there has been a substantial increase in the amount appropriated for the DCTAG program from its inception (see Table 2 ), there has been no change to the maximum award size in response to the trend of rising postsecondary education costs, which may be leaving many program participants paying more per year for their education than in previous years or possibly limiting their choices of which institution to attend. The extent to which DCTAG awards may be covering a declining amount of the differential between in-state and out-of-state tuition is a commonly raised concern about the DCTAG program. This section of the report examines the extent to which the maximum award may be bridging the gap between in-state and out-of-state tuition. It also examines growth in maximum awards as a share of all awards.

Public Institutions of Higher Education

Most DCTAG recipients choose to attend a public IHE, for which they can receive up to $10,000 per year towards the difference between in- and out-of-state tuition. Even though the number of DCTAG recipients on the whole has remained relatively stable, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of $10,000 awards disbursed each year since 2004, as shown in Table 6 . The nationwide increase in tuition and fees may be contributing to this upturn in maximum awards received, although there may be other factors that impact this, such as students' choices to attend four-year IHEs rather than two-year IHEs.

In AY2011-2012, 66% of those DCTAG recipients who received the maximum annual DCTAG award of $10,000 enrolled at public four-year IHEs in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia (regional IHEs). Moreover, most of those students enrolled in a small number of those regional IHEs. For instance, Figure 2 shows that of the 978 students who received the maximum $10,000 DCTAG award and attended a regional IHE in AY2011-2012, 528 (54%) attended one of six schools: Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Bowie State University; George Mason University; Norfolk State University; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Virginia Commonwealth University; the other 450 (46%) students who received the maximum award attended 53 other regional IHEs.

The average in- and out-of-state tuition differential for these six most-attended regional IHEs was $14,092; therefore, on average, a DCTAG recipient who attended one of these schools and who received the maximum annual award would still face a gap of an average of $4,092 in out-of-state tuition.

To meet the program's stated purpose of providing access to a greater range of postsecondary educational options, Congress could consider increasing the maximum annual DCTAG award to account for the in- and out-of-state tuition differential at popular regional public IHEs at which many DCTAG recipients are receiving the maximum annual award, currently, a differential of approximately $14,100 per year. Such a decision would likely be weighed in relation to competing demands for resources. Alternatively, Congress could consider better matching individual students' financial need to DCTAG funds awarded through means testing or by lowering the current $1 million income cap for participation.

Private Nonprofit Schools and Private HBCUs

Tuition and fees at private not-for-profit four-year IHEs also have grown considerably since DCTAG was created, but the maximum annual award—$2,500—has not increased. Table 7 shows that, since AY2004-2005, the median tuition and fees for such institutions in the District of Columbia has increased by 42.5%, while the percentage of DCTAG recipients enrolled in DC area private not-for-profit four-year IHEs in each year has decreased slightly.

Table 8 shows a similar but slightly more pronounced result for DCTAG participants choosing to attend private not-for-profit four-year HBCUs. Since AY2004-2005, the median tuition and fees at such institutions has increased by 34.6%, while the percentage of DCTAG recipients attending has decreased by 2.6%.

Although the increase in tuition and fees at DC private nonprofit IHEs and private HBCUs nationwide may not have deterred DCTAG recipients from attending such schools, the unchanged $2,500 award does not go as far as it did 10 years ago, thereby causing recipients to pay more out-of-pocket costs than in years past.

Appendix. Other Higher Education Support Programs for District of Columbia Residents

In addition to federal student aid, there are several other programs that are available to residents of Washington, DC:

The District of Columbia College Access Program (DC CAP) is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1999 to encourage and enable DC high school students to enroll in postsecondary schools and provides them with educational counseling and financial assistance to help them succeed. In partnership with the District of Columbia Public School system (DCPS), District of Columbia charter schools, and OSSE, DC CAP serves DC high school students, primarily from low-income, minority, and single-parent households, during both high school and college, through counseling, seminars, and preparatory programs. In addition, the organization offers high school graduates need-based Last Dollar Awards of up to $2,070 per student per year for up to five years to cover unmet college expenses. DC Adoption provides scholarships to students who were adopted from the DC Child & Family Services Agency after October 1, 2001, and students who lost one or both parents as a result of the events of September 11, 2001. Students may receive up to $10,000 toward the cost of postsecondary education per year for up to six years. The Mayor's Scholars Undergraduate Fund provides need-based grants to eligible DC residents, which they can apply towards the cost of pursuing their first undergraduate degree at a public or private institution located within DC. Grants can equal up to $3,000 at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) Community College, up to $7,000 at UDC, and up to $10,000 at private institutions. Individuals who receive DCTAG assistance are also eligible to receive Mayor's Scholars Undergraduate Fund grants. The program was first announced in October 2012 and began operating in FY2013.