Abstract
State sponsored merit- and need-based aid constitutes one of the most important and fastest growing sources of student assistance for postsecondary education. Although California has one of the largest and most generous state aid programs in the country, studies on the impact of California state aid are scarce. In this thesis, I examine the impact of California state aid eligibility and disbursement on the graduation rates. For my study, I employ a regression discontinuity design on students’ income eligibility and analyze a rich administrative dataset from the University of California, Davis. While I do not find a statistically significant effect of aid on graduation rates for the overall sample, I do find that certain types of aid play a large role in decreasing the graduation rate gap between underrepresented and non-underrepresented students.