2018 Public Service (Small Staff) Finalists: The Hechinger Report Staff, APM Reports Staff Staff

About the Entry

Last year alone, more than 900,000 low-income students who applied for and were found eligible for state financial aid for college never received it, because states ran out of money.

Comments from the Judges

“It’s the power of journalism to point this out to rest of us. Impressive work to dig into the topic across the nation as well.”

“This story highlights a little-known crisis of financing higher education and I commend The Hechinger Report for bringing it to light.”

“This is an excellent example of reporting digging into an issue that people within the system take for granted. This type of financial aid structure becomes the water officials swim in without talking much about it.”