Student Financial Aid Report

At its April meeting, the Iowa Board of Regents will receive a report on financial aid efforts at Iowa’s Regent universities. The Annual Student Financial Aid report details how students receive financial aid, their sources of aid, and provides a year-over-year comparison dating back 10 years.

Institutional aid – that is, aid awarded to students by the universities themselves – reached record levels in 2024-25. Institutional aid awarded to undergraduates reached $327 million, the highest total on record. Iowa State and the University of Iowa awarded record institutional aid to undergraduates, with $162 million and $141 million, respectively. 

Financial aid awarded to all students rose from $1.12 billion in 2023-24 to $1.23 billion in 2024-25. This includes aid awarded to both undergraduate and graduate students from the federal government, the institutions, the state of Iowa and private organizations, foundations and companies. 

The financial aid story is largely the same across the nation, with federal aid dropping steadily since 2010-11 and institutional aid growing to help fill the gap. Private giving and state grants have remained largely unchanged. The decline of federal aid over the last 15 years has been driven by reductions in Federal Pell grants and reductions in federal research funding, though these numbers have seen an uptick in recent years.

 
Federal aid for Iowa’s public universities is largely flat since 2009-10, with institutional aid nearly doubling since that time. State aid remains roughly flat since 2009-10, with a $5.8 million decrease from last year.