Student OASDI beneficiaries: program utilization and educational aspirations.

This article describes the past, current, and projected utilization of social security student benefits by children receiving them in December 1972. Of the nearly 2 million children aged 18--21 estimated to eligible in 1972, about one-third were actually receiving benefits at the end of the year. School enrollment rates by age and race for the beneficiary and total populations were remarkably similar. Nearly half the students with benefits in current-payment status had been initially awarded benefits as children 5 or more years earlier. An estimated 68 percent of those in the sample were expected to have fulfilled their undergraduate plans before benefits were terminated because of the age cutoff. Multivariate analysis revealed that the amount of the monthly benefit has a significant nonlinear relationship with the beneficiary's plans to continue in school. The median cumulative benefit received was projected to be just over $5,000 for those intending 4 or more years of college.