"Receiving financial aid appears to have a significant positive impact on the educational performance of college students from low-income families, but many higher-education institutions are bending to pressure to give aid to other students who do not necessarily need it, according to research scheduled to be discussed here this week at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education," Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "One study being presented here, based on data from the University of Oregon on its scholarship recipients, found that getting merit-based financial aid appeared to have a positive impact on students in terms of their first-year grades, with the boost being especially pronounced for students from low-income backgrounds."