Third Party Scholarships and the Students Who Receive Them: Increasing Opportunity or Perpetuating Inequality?

Abstract

Postsecondary financial aid (including scholarship awards) in the United States are as complicated and diverse in their function as they are in their long-term implications and outcomes. Through an examination of third party scholarships and the students who receive them, this study seeks to understand the dynamic intersection between a student's contextual environment, motivation and agency by analyzing students' interpretations of themselves and their place within the larger financial and scholarship context. The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of human motivation and Deil-Amen & Tevis' (2010) circumscribed agency framework form the theoretical foundation of this study. The main contributions of this study include a description of how third party scholarships fit into the larger financial aid picture, an index of what eligibility components constitute third party scholarships, the creation of Third Party Scholarship Recipient Typology, and a synthesis of theory that informs future policy and practice.