From Decentralized Means-testing to the Centralized Management of Stipends and Loans: The Administration of Student Financial Aid in Denmark 1950–2000

This study is a historical investigation of the state education grants
and loans system in Denmark during the period 1950–2000. Since
1952, Danish students enrolled in higher education programmes
have been subsidised under a unified public financial aid scheme,
with varying degrees of general coverage. During the first
decades of the state support arrangement, the amounts offered
were low, and targeted the neediest students on a purely
discretionary basis. Today, financial aid is granted to all students,
in the form of universal and rights-based transfer payments. This
paper focuses on the institutional traits of the aid scheme, paying
special attention to its level of decentralisation, and examines the
critical points in the evolution of the legal and administrative
framework behind the student support system in Denmark. The
central aim of this study is to provide important insight into the
policy and organisational development of a national financial aid
scheme for students