The U.S. Education Department (ED) disbursed $31.47 billion in Pell grants to 6.53 million students in the 2023-24 academic year, based on preliminary year-end data. This represents a significant increase from the prior year, when $27.2 billion were awarded to 6.17 million students.
The increase in dollars disbursed is due to a combination of factors. First, roughly 360,000 more students received awards, and the maximum Pell Grant increased by $500, from $6,895 to $7,395. This resulted in the average Pell grant increasing from $4,409 to $4819.
Sector share
For this report, the most recent full-year unduplicated headcount enrollment (for the prior academic year 2022-23) was used to estimate the percent of students who received a Pell Grant. These data use both the total full-year headcount enrollment to represent the percent of all students attending who receive a Pell Grant, as well as only the students reported as degree- or certificate-seeking (thus eligible for Title IV financial aid). In addition, public community colleges include all regionally accredited public primarily associate degree-granting institutions, which includes colleges that offer limited numbers of bachelor’s degrees.
Community colleges have the largest share of undergraduate enrollment for a full academic year (41% of full-year unduplicated headcount enrollment, see Figure 1). They also have a significant number of students who are not enrolled in programs leading to a degree or certificate, and with those students removed from all sectors, public four-year colleges enrolled a slightly higher percentage of undergraduates than community colleges in the 2022-23 academic year (36.4% vs 34.7%).
Mirroring their share of credential-seeking undergraduate students, roughly one-third (34.0%) of students receiving Pell grants attended a public community college; however, only 29.2% of the Pell grants funds went to those students (Figure 1). This is reflected in the average Pell Grant awards being the smallest ($4,149) of any sector for public community college students (Figure 2).
The largest share (36.8%) of Pell Grant funds went to students at public four-year colleges. Independent four-year colleges (16.1%) and for-profit colleges (15.7%) received approximately the same share of the Pell funds.
Students attending independent two-year colleges had the largest average Pell Grant ($5,634), but this sector comprises less than 1% of total undergraduate enrollment.
Figure 3 shows the estimated percentage of total undergraduate students and credential-seeking students who received a Pell Grant in each sector. Because public community colleges and tribal collages have relatively high rates of non-credential-seeking students, they have a greater difference between the rate of all students with a Pell Grant and the rate of credential-seeking students with a Pell Grant. High school students taking classes at community colleges (dual-enrolled students) are all included in the non-credential-seeking count.
Based on this analysis, it is estimated that roughly one-quarter of all students in community college received a Pell Grant in the 2023-24 academic year, increasing to an estimated 36.6% if only credential-seeking students are included.
Independent two-year colleges had the highest estimated rate of students receiving Pell grants (62.8% of credential-seeking students), followed closely by the for-profit sector, where nearly six out of every 10 students (58.7%) received the grant. Roughly one-third of the credential-seeking students in both public four-year colleges (34.1%) and independent four-year colleges (33.2%) received a Pell Grant based on these estimates.
Community college share by state
The same methodology as above was used to estimate the percent of students who received a Pell Grant in public community colleges by state. Figure 4 displays the estimated percent of all students in the academic year who received a Pell Grant and the estimated percent of credential-seeking students who received the grant.
Only 13.1% of all students enrolled in North Dakota community colleges received a Pell Grant — the lowest rate of Pell Grant receipts — whereas Louisianna had the highest rate at 51.2%. When non-credential-seeking students were excluded in calculating the rate, New Mexico community colleges had the lowest Pell Grant rate (24.0%), while Louisianna remained the state with the highest rate (60.7%).
