Heller, who researched the relationship between tuition and financial aid for the American Council on Education, said the blame game is referred to as the Bennett Hypothesis.

The concept was named for former Secretary of Education William Bennett, who enforced the idea that rise in the dispersion of federal student aid gives universities the right to increase tuition.

“A lot of people out there in politics or other areas want to believe this is true,” Heller said. “It’s an easy scapegoat.”

Aside from the Pell Grant, Michael Boulus, the executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan, said there isn’t much of a connection between the two entities. The true issue, he said, comes at the state level.

“They have kept costs at inflation over the past couple decades, and that’s the biggest culprit,” Boulus said. “Although this state support is going up, they’ve kept dollars pretty constant. Regulation of in-state aid per student is the driving force behind tuition increases.”

Val Meyers, the associate director of the MSU Office of Financial Aid, said the department does what it can to keep the two separate.

“We try not to get involved in tuition costs,” Meyers said.

Rather than blaming financial aid awards, Heller said the focus should be turned inward on a state-by-state basis.

“The smoking gun in tuition on part of public universities is easy,” he said. “State appropriations allow them to drive up tuition prices. Given what’s happened at MSU in the past 10 years, that’s really the culprit we need to look at.”