Did Your Aid Strategy Really Work?

Now that decisions are in, it’s tempting to tie outcomes directly to scholarship strategy.

A student deposits? The aid must have been competitive. A student walks away? Maybe the package wasn’t strong enough.

But the truth is more complicated—and more revealing.

Financial aid is often the final moment in a student’s decision journey. Because of that timing, it gets over-credited (when a student says yes) and over-blamed (when they say no). But the award itself isn’t always what made the difference.

What matters most isn’t the amount. It’s the reaction.

Did the student engage right after receiving their award? Did they start completing next steps? Did they go quiet—even with a competitive offer?

The aid package is a stimulus. But it’s the response that carries predictive weight.

Some students respond to modest offers with high enthusiasm. Others disengage despite significant awards. And in both cases, it's the behavior—not the award—that reveals intent.

This is where financial aid strategy can mislead institutions. If you're only looking at award amounts and final decisions, you're missing the critical middle: how students actually responded in the days and weeks following that package.

Because here’s the key insight: aid doesn’t work in a vacuum. Its impact is mediated by emotion, timing, engagement, and trust—factors that vary student by student.

If you want to improve your aid strategy for future cycles, start with a different question:

Not “What did we offer?” But “How did students respond?”

That’s where the real answers—and the most valuable adjustments—will come from.

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A while back, we offered a different way to think about discounting, with a webinar titled "You're Probably Optimized" - where we suggest it's time to move beyond scholarship tweaks to improve enrollment.