Emergency Aid as a Retention Strategy: A Partner Convening Webinar

Emergency aid is short-term financial assistance that helps college students overcome unexpected expenses—such as housing instability, medical bills, transportation issues, or food insecurity—that might otherwise force them to withdraw from school. Research shows that even small emergency grants, often under $1,000, can significantly improve student retention by addressing immediate basic needs. Students who receive emergency aid report lower stress, improved focus, and higher persistence and graduation rates, making emergency aid one of the most cost-effective strategies for supporting college completion.

In this live Partner Convening webinar hosted by Scholarship America, leaders from Lumina Foundation, E4E Relief, and Travelers Edge discuss how emergency aid functions as a powerful student retention strategy. The conversation examines data, program design, and real-world outcomes that show how modest grants can prevent students from stopping out due to short-term financial crises.

Scholarship America would like to thank Wells Fargo for their generous sponsorship of this discussion, as well as acknowledge and thank our funders who have supported Scholarship America’s work to research, raise awareness of, and fund emergency aid programs, including ECMC Foundation, Trellis Foundation, Ascendium, Crimsonbridge Foundation, and Lumina Foundation.

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Jacquelyn Bengfort

Program Marketing Manager

Scholarship America

Katy Launius

Strategy Officer for Student Success

Lumina Foundation

Ashley Oster

Vice President & Director, Marketing & Partnerships

E4E Relief

Ivelisse Maldonado

Travelers EDGE® Program Manager

Travelers Insurance

Please note that the following transcript has been edited for clarity.

Jacquelyn Bengfort:

Thank you all so much for being here today for the panel discussion, Emergency Aid as a Retention Strategy. My name is Jacquelyn Bengfort, and I serve as the Program Marketing Manager at Scholarship America. My job is finding scholars to match to our scholarships, and that’s what I think about all day long. I was really excited to get to moderate this panel today.

Before I introduce our panelists, I’d like to set the stage for our discussion by sharing a few key statistics.

• Seventy‑four percent of college students have jobs, but many still can’t make ends meet.
• Nearly 40% of college students drop out without completing a degree, and often that dropout is set in motion by a financial emergency of $1,000 or less.
• That means roughly three million students leave college each year due to unmet financial needs.
• At Scholarship America, our average emergency grant amount is $785. What we’ve seen is that grants like these can double persistence rates by addressing students’ basic needs, such as housing or food security.
• Eighty‑two percent of emergency aid recipients self‑report that the funding directly improved their chances of graduating.

I’m going to do a quick introduction of our panelists. We’re joined today by Dr. Katy Launius, Strategy Officer for Student Success at Lumina Foundation, where she develops and implements evidence‑based approaches to increase student completion rates. Her work emphasizes data‑driven interventions and scalable models that address systemic barriers to degree attainment, including emergency aid.

We’re also joined by Ashley Oster, Vice President and Director of Marketing and Partnerships at E4E Relief, who brings frontline experience helping corporations support individuals and communities. E4E Relief has partnered with Scholarship America to administer the Brave of Heart Scholarship for students who lost a healthcare worker parent or partner to COVID‑19.

Finally, we have Ivelisse Maldonado, the Travelers EDGE® Program Manager at Travelers Insurance. Ivelisse joined Travelers in 2011 and is responsible for the day‑to‑day operations of the Travelers Edge program. EDGE stands for Empowering Dreams for Graduation and Employment, and the program includes managing the Travelers Edge Emergency Fund to help scholars remain in school through unexpected financial setbacks. Thank you all for being here.

Why Emergency Aid Matters for College Student Retention

I’d like to start by asking a question for any or all of our panelists: what excites you about emergency aid? This type of program is still considered relatively new and innovative in the scholarship world. What potential do you see compared to more traditional scholarship programs or other student supports?

Katy Launius:

I can start, and I’m really glad to be with everyone today. From a philanthropic investment perspective, emergency aid is a remarkably cost‑effective strategy to help students remain enrolled and persist toward their educational goals. As you shared in the statistics, the average amounts we’re talking about are relatively small. From an investment standpoint, it’s exciting to see how these small dollar amounts can prevent much larger losses for students, such as lost credits or delayed completion.

Emergency aid can also reduce time to completion, which is directly associated with the overall cost of college. There’s also the broader issue of talent pipeline disruption when students drop out. From an investment perspective, what excites me is the impact that donors and sponsors can make.

Ashley Oster:

Thank you so much for having E4E Relief as part of this conversation. We’ve been providing grants to individuals for nearly 25 years. It often surprises people how little it can take to restore financial stability when someone experiences unforeseen circumstances, whether that’s a natural disaster or a personal hardship. Those moments can quickly derail education, productivity, and wellbeing.

It’s powerful to think about how grants that funnel dollars directly to individuals can help them stay on the path they started on and show tangible support from donors and corporations.

Jacquelyn Bengfort:

Thank you. That’s a really great point. These are small dollars that can go a very long way. What may seem like a small investment for a large organization can be life‑changing for a student. Katy, I’d love to ask you specifically about your work at Lumina. How impactful is emergency aid as a retention tool, and are there other tools it pairs particularly well with?

How Emergency Aid Improves Persistence and Graduation Outcomes

Katy Launius:

Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m so privileged to be able to serve in this role at Lumina. Prior to joining the foundation, I worked as a community college dean of student success and had the opportunity to really see firsthand how things like transportation, childcare, and housing instability can create cascading crises for students.

And I think the other thing is that these are not students who lack motivation or academic ability. We’re talking about our best and most promising students—working adults, parents, or students juggling multiple responsibilities. Like you mentioned, Jacqueline, so many students work now. There’s research from Trellis Strategies about how many students don’t actually have a student-first identity. They think of themselves as a worker, in fact.

What we do know is that the number one reason students consider dropping out of college is due to financial challenges. So of course there’s a broader college affordability concern, but even students who are receiving scholarships or academic support might encounter one-time emergency situations.

While this is relatively new in terms of a scholarship model, Wisconsin was actually the first state to provide statewide funding for an emergency aid program ten years ago. We have a lot of evidence now, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, HEERF funds allowed most institutions to temporarily establish emergency aid programs. We’ve been able to get a lot of great data from those programs.

Eighty-one percent of students reported less stress and being able to better focus on their studies after receiving an emergency grant. Forty-one percent borrowed less in loans than they would have without emergency aid, and it also allowed them to work fewer hours. Almost 60 percent of students report that receiving emergency aid allowed them to stay enrolled.

Emergency Aid as a High-Impact, Low-Cost Investment

When we look at campus-level impact studies, we’ve seen evidence that students who receive emergency aid experience an 11 percent increase in graduation rates compared to students who narrowly missed eligibility for support. And as Ashley mentioned, it’s not just about meeting financial need. These funds really help students improve their personal wellbeing. Three in four students say it helps them feel like their college cares about them more, improving their sense of belonging and trust in the institution.

It’s a really effective strategy. But what we also know is that something may happen to cause an emergency—let’s say a car breaks down. We might be able to help solve that immediate problem, but the student may have an unreliable car. In six months or a year, there could be another challenge.

From my firsthand experience working on a community college campus and now in this role, emergency aid is most effective when combined with other supports. Being connected with an advisor who can build a one-on-one relationship over time, or using the emergency aid application as the front door into a host of holistic supports, makes a big difference. That could include referrals to a campus food pantry or offsite social services to help students achieve greater financial stability and reduce future emergencies.

What I would also say is that demand for this kind of aid exceeds what most institutions can sustainably provide, even in states with dedicated public funds. Washington State, for example, is a leader in providing statewide funding for campus emergency aid programs, but in fiscal year 2023 they could fund only four million dollars out of more than 32 million dollars in requests. There’s a lot of need and a lot of opportunity for folks to step in and address this problem.

Jacquelyn Bengfort:

Thank you so much. I’ve been in that professor role on campus not so very long ago, and I’m very aware of how we’re often competing for students’ attention with their jobs, which are a very important part of how they’re funding their education. Wonderful points—thank you.

Ashley, I wanted to hear from you about your work at E4E Relief, especially how you’re providing guidance to corporations that are looking to create scholarship and emergency aid programs. What sorts of hardships are responsive to these programs, and what outcomes have you witnessed working with potential sponsors?

Common Emergencies That Threaten Student Success

Ashley Oster:

Yes, thank you so much, Jacqueline. You mentioned earlier one of my favorite opportunities. I’ve been in this field of emergency relief for seven years, including working on the Brave of Heart Fund, which was incredibly visionary—especially recognizing that there would be so much loss for families due to healthcare workers passing away from COVID.

The foundations of New York Life and Cigna came alongside us, and we were able to set up a relief program to assist families who had lost a family member, a significant hardship that often leaves families in need of additional financial resources.

What was so meaningful was that afterward, we continued to think about other challenges connected to the healthcare field and healthcare workers’ families. We partnered with Scholarship America to turn those needs into opportunities by providing nursing scholarships for the children of these families, strengthening the healthcare industry overall. I want to take a moment to say how rewarding it has been to partner with you all and to distribute 11 million dollars in scholarships since 2022. We’re very thankful for that.

Traditionally, E4E Relief works with corporations to assess risks to their employee bases or communities and determine what kinds of programs would best support consistency, productivity, wellbeing, and financial stability.

You asked about other hardships, and some of the most common reasons for emergency grants include unexpected medical conditions. A diagnosis in a family can derail what someone expects to afford through insurance or otherwise. Domestic violence is another major area where we provide grants to help individuals reach safety without being stopped by a lack of financial resources.

In addition, we help during natural disasters. What used to be considered “disaster season” now feels constant—whether flooding, hurricanes, or extreme heat. Last year at this time, we were supporting many communities in California impacted by wildfires. We help with evacuation costs, short-term housing, food recovery, and other immediate needs.

These are challenges that both students and employees face, and they need guidance in setting up a safety net or financial lifeline to get through what is often a one-time event.

Jacquelyn Bengfort:

Yeah, there really are so many types of emergencies. I really appreciate you calling out the whole range, because I think anything that can impact a person can impact a student. But the impact for a student is often that they lose momentum on their education on top of the other losses they’re facing.

Ivelisse, you’ve been with the Travelers Edge program for so many years, and I’m interested in learning about the emergency funding part of that program. How do you define and assess what constitutes an emergency? And I think a lot of people will have this question. How do you handle difficult choices between multiple requests when you have more requests than you can fulfill?

Designing and Administering Emergency Aid Programs at Scale

Ivelisse Maldonado:

Well, the great thing is that we partner with Scholarship America—Megan Whitaker, to be exact. She’s been an amazing partner. We have very specific guidelines for our scholars.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be reminding them that our emergency fund is active and available, so they can go into the portal using the guidelines we’ve set aside and complete an application. All scholars who are in the program can apply twice a year, up to $2,000 in an academic year, and up to $5,000 total while they’re in the program and in college. Using the guidelines makes it much easier for us to determine whether a need is going to be approved.

Typically, when scholars submit a request for the emergency fund, they’ve read through the guidelines and are working with our on-campus program managers to determine what falls within the guidelines and what doesn’t. For the most part, everyone follows those guidelines.

We may receive multiple requests, but if there’s a need that doesn’t fully fall within the guidelines, Megan is great about reaching out to either the program manager on campus or myself so we can talk about it. In some instances, we do have to be flexible and approve a request on an as-needed basis. But as I mentioned, we have very clear guidelines, and scholars know they must submit documentation to support their requests. That actually makes the process much easier.

Very rarely have we had to decline a request that comes through for an emergency fund grant.

Jacquelyn Bengfort:
That’s incredible. I love that you’re able to set guidelines and also take special cases into account. I think that makes it a really powerful program.

I’m curious—and this could be for anybody—what partnerships with campus offices like financial aid, student affairs, or counseling help identify students or connect them to emergency aid? Katy, I think you may have particular insight here, but I think everybody probably can weigh in. How do you approach the problem of actually finding the students who need help?

Finding Students Who Need Emergency Aid

Katy Launius:
Yeah. I think what was interesting for me to see with students is that the students we’re talking about are our best and brightest, and in many ways our most resilient students. Oftentimes, they’re used to being resilient on their own and figuring things out for themselves.

Alongside having an emergency fund available, it requires a lot of outreach and effort to normalize help-seeking behavior. I would receive emergency aid applications from students who would self-report that it wasn’t the most serious emergency they’d ever had, but I might read the circumstances and think, “Oh my gosh—there’s no way I could still show up to class if I were having to overcome all of these challenges.” So it’s really important to normalize seeking help.

We also can’t underestimate the role of faculty. Faculty are the people who see students week in and week out in the classroom. When faculty display empathy, understanding, and openness, even small actions—like including statements on course syllabi about available resources—can go a long way in normalizing that students encounter challenges and that the college has support available to help them overcome those challenges.

So it really comes down to a lot of outreach and making sure employees, faculty, and staff know about the resources available so students can be referred to the right place.

Jacquelyn Bengfort:
Thank you. I’m also curious about measuring impact here. We’ve talked a lot about retention rates, but are there other metrics you track to measure the impact of emergency aid? I’m interested in both harder statistical measures and more subjective measures that you look at.

Ashley Oster:
Yeah, I can share a little bit about E4E Relief’s experience. Since our founding, it’s been so important to make sure you’re never giving grants or aid as a checkbox. You really want to make sure it can make a difference in somebody’s life.

We launched research that we call Impact Stack, and we have over 25,000 surveys completed by grantees to ask those questions. The surveys go out about six weeks after the event so we can ask, “Did this help you stay on track? Did it actually make a difference in your life?”

The outcomes we see most often at the top are financial stability, which is a huge deal—being able to overcome a crisis without having to change food choices, school choices, or housing choices. That’s incredibly significant.

That directly connects to the second highest factor, which is emotional wellbeing, which Katie spoke to as well. Financial stress takes up a lot of mental space. One report I saw noted that many individuals in the United States spend about 14 hours a week worrying about finances—asking themselves, “How am I going to make this happen?” The idea that you could give 14 hours back to someone and say, “We’ve got your back,” is a really big deal and a significant outcome of these grants.

Another outcome we see is productivity, which makes a lot of sense. When someone is trying to solve a crisis and isn’t sure how to do it, it often results in missed work, missed classes, and absences. A strong outcome is that the person can carry on with their activities as expected.

The third outcome we’ve seen through our research is exactly what Katie mentioned: an increased perception of loyalty and trust. Whether it’s an educational institution, a corporation, or even a donor group, that feeling of “Thank you so much for understanding me, seeing me, and being there for me during a hard time” really matters.

Key Metrics: Retention, Financial Stability, and Wellbeing

Jacquelyn Bengfort:
Amazing. I do want to mention that the Q&A is now open. As we come toward the end of our session, please go ahead and drop your questions for our panelists there.

Ivelisse, how are you thinking about success—both for the emergency aid portion of Travelers Edge and the program as a whole? Are there key indicators you use to see how emergency aid is helping your scholars through college?

Ivelisse Maldonado:
Yes. For us, success in the program means that our scholars complete a bachelor’s degree and come out prepared for a career at Travelers or within the insurance industry. Making sure that obstacles are removed—anything that would keep them from going to class, taking exams, and ultimately graduating—is success for us.

Our scholars not only receive access to the emergency fund, but our program is holistic. We offer wraparound services for all scholars. There are five pillars, and scholars benefit from mentoring, peer-to-peer support, professional development, academic advising, and financial support beyond the emergency fund.

The financial support is there to help them through college so they can complete their bachelor’s degree without worrying about graduating with debt. The emergency fund is there to remove obstacles that could keep them from attending class, taking exams, or doing the things necessary to attain their degree.

For us, success is our scholars being able to graduate from college, which is the goal of this program.

Normalizing Help-Seeking Behavior Among Students

Jacquelyn Bengfort:
Thank you so much. We have a lot of questions coming in through the Q&A, and I wanted to grab one.

Is there any conversation around removing the word emergency from these types of funds so students feel less stigma, or feel more confident that their situation warrants support? I’m curious whether any of you have debated the use of emergency versus a different term to describe these grants.

Katy Launius:
Yes, I was actually part of a pretty extensive conversation last fall with a group of philanthropic funders interested in basic needs support, and we did talk about this. Where we landed was the question, “What would be the better term?” So if anyone has an answer, definitely drop it in the chat. Or if Ashley or Ivelisse has figured it out, let us know.

I hear the concern. It’s challenging, and we’ve already made college financing and funding very hard for students to understand. I agree that simplification is important, but we also may not need to over-engineer the term if we can’t come up with a better one.

Ashley Oster:
The only thing I would add is that sometimes the boundaries themselves are helpful. Clearly defining what we’re able to provide in the event of unforeseen circumstances helps people understand what is eligible and what isn’t.

Funding is challenging, especially sustaining it long-term. Understanding these grants as emergency or financial relief helps students recognize whether they might qualify. Without clear boundaries, programs can become overwhelmed with applications, which makes sustainability and equity difficult. That’s my main reason for keeping the term—it provides clarity about what the funding is for.

Ivelisse Maldonado:
I’d like to add that while I manage the Travelers Edge program, I partner closely with program managers on our campus partners. This conversation hasn’t come up for us yet, but it’s a great question. If our partner campuses were to change the name of their emergency funding programs, we would likely follow suit. As of now, the conversation hasn’t come up from a Travelers Edge standpoint.

Jacquelyn Bengfort:
That’s really helpful. Someone shared in the Q&A that they call it a scholar success fund. That’s one of the tricky parts. I also think what Katy said about helping students develop the mindset that asking for help is okay is really important.

We all experience emergencies, and helping students feel comfortable raising their hand and saying, “Yes, I’m having an emergency,” is a key part of this work.

Is Emergency Aid Taxable?

Jacquelyn Bengfort:
We also received questions about whether emergency aid is taxable. There isn’t a black-and-white answer. Scholarship America cannot provide tax advice, and I want to be very clear about that. We recommend that students work with their tax advisor to determine whether their emergency grant is taxable.

We also had several questions submitted ahead of time. I want to thank everyone in the Q&A for their thoughtful questions. My colleagues and I are capturing them so we can address anything we don’t get to today in the future.

How Quickly Do Students Receive Emergency Aid Funds?

Jacquelyn Bengfort:
One common question is about timing: How quickly do students go from submitting a request or application to actually accessing funds? I can share the Scholarship America perspective, but I’d also love to hear from everyone else.

Ivelisse Maldonado:
I can go. From a Travelers Edge standpoint—and again, Megan Whitaker is an amazing partner—our SLA for fund requests is within three days from application to scholars receiving funds. If something is more immediate, I’ll talk to Megan and, if possible, she’ll work to make it happen more quickly. Once she reaches her chain of command and gets approvals, she can often expedite it. For us, it’s within three days, and the funds go directly to the scholars.

Katy Launius:
Yeah. When I worked on a college campus, we partnered with a mobile app provider that allowed us to turn around applications and deliver funds within 48 hours. What we see from emergency aid research studies is that program design and implementation really matter. Programs that emphasize speed of delivery and simplicity of application are key factors.

Ashley Oster:
Yeah, I love that. It’s been really fun this year to reflect on our 25th year in the industry. Sometimes we think, “Do you remember when we had paper applications and people faxed them in?” Then there were committee reviews and processes like that.

This is an area I get really excited about because if you’re thinking about being a financial first responder, time really matters. If you want to make a difference, being swift and providing a good applicant experience is very significant. There’s always room to grow and improve in the industry, but where we’ve all come together—reviewing and dispersing grants within 24 to 48 hours, or even three days—is really wonderful.

I only see more progress in the future as people continue to innovate and use better technologies.

How to Support or Launch an Emergency Aid Program

Jacquelyn Bengfort:

Great. Thank you so much. I’m going to go ahead and wrap us up so we end right on time—I’m very much a calendar person. I want to thank all of our panelists for being here and Wells Fargo for their generous sponsorship of the panel.

We’ll be sharing the recording and resources soon after today, so you’ll be able to go back and review the conversation. Please feel free to share it with others who may be interested in learning how emergency aid can help students.

If you have questions about emergency grants, you can find a wealth of resources at scholarshipamerica.org/emergencyaid. There are many ways to support this work, whether that’s setting up an emergency aid program to support students directly, making a grant to advance the field through research and pilots, or donating to our existing emergency aid fund.

We know the need is there, and it’s not going away anytime soon. As funding priorities shift, economically vulnerable students are often among the first to be impacted. As you heard today, this is a powerful intervention. Emergency aid can make the difference between graduating and not graduating, between staying on track or having to stop out and return later, which is incredibly challenging for students.

When Scholarship America had to cancel our in-person events last November, we redirected the catered meals to students facing SNAP benefit cuts in the District of Columbia. We saw firsthand that even a single meal can make a difference for a student in need—and emergency grants can be exponentially more powerful than that.

Please share this information with colleagues or contacts if you feel moved to do so. We’ll be following up with additional resources, and I also want to thank everyone who submitted questions. We’re capturing those so we can continue the conversation beyond today’s webinar.

Thank you again to all of our attendees. We hope to see you at our next webinar, which will focus on donor-advised funds and will be sponsored by Imaginable Futures in February. Thanks again for being here.

This webinar is generously sponsored by Wells Fargo.