Audit: Student Financial Aid Algorithm Bias

[yakew7]

Domain

Automated need-assessment and merit-aid scoring in higher education.

Dataset

Public college scorecard / IPEDS aid data, or a released institutional aid dataset (confirm public access first).

Protected attribute(s)

Race, First-generation status, Income bracket.

Suspected proxy variables

High school of origin, zip code, SAT/ACT scores (which correlate with income and race).

Real-world context

Aid-optimization models can steer institutional dollars toward already-advantaged applicants. This audit measures the aid-allocation gap across groups before and after proxy removal.

Hyphens only - no em dashes.

[yakew7]

Thanks for proposing this audit! 🙏

Fair Code is currently under a paper freeze: the benchmark results are cited in a research paper in peer review, and the paper covers exactly seven domains, so new audits cannot be merged into main until it is published (details in CLAUDE.md).

This is a timing hold, not a rejection. Closing for now and tagging post-paper so it is easy to find and reopen once the freeze lifts — track status in ROADMAP.md → Phase 6. In the meantime, explainer and tooling contributions are very welcome.