Billions spent on college students who quit school in their first year

News release: Over a five-year period, more than $9 billion was spent by state and federal governments to support students at four-year colleges and universities who left school before their sophomore year. In “Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First Year Student Attrition in America’s Four Year Colleges and Universities,” American Institutes for Research analyzed 2003-2008 federal data and found that the 30 percent of first-year college students who failed to return to campus for a second year accounted for $6.2 billion in state appropriations for colleges and universities and more than $1.4 billion in student grants from the states. Additionally, the federal government provided $1.5 billion in grants to these students.