Merit Aid, College Quality and College Completion: Massachusetts’ Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy
58 Pages Posted: 23 Aug 2012 Last revised: 2 Apr 2013
Date Written: March 21, 2013
Abstract
We analyze a Massachusetts merit aid program in which high-scoring students received tuition waivers at in-state public colleges with lower graduation rates than available alternative colleges. A regression discontinuity design comparing students just above and below the eligibility threshold finds that students are remarkably willing to forgo college quality for relatively little money and that marginal students lowered their college completion rates by using the scholarship. These results imply that college quality has a substantial impact on college completion rates and that students likely do not understand this fact well. The theoretical prediction that in-kind subsidies of public institutions can reduce consumption of the subsidized good is shown to be empirically important.
Keywords: education, higher education
JEL Classification: I23, I24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Cohort Crowding: How Resources Affect Collegiate Attainment
By John Bound and Sarah E. Turner
-
By John Bound, Michael Lovenheim, ...
-
By Jonathan Sandy, Arturo Gonzalez, ...
-
Increasing Time to Baccalaureate Degree in the United States
By John Bound, Michael Lovenheim, ...
-
Gains and Gaps: Changing Inequality in U.S. College Entry and Completion
-
The Role of Two-Year Colleges in the Improving Situation of Hispanic Postsecondary Education
By Arturo Gonzalez and Michael J. Hilmer
-
Within State Transitions from 2-Year to 4-Year Public Institutions
-
By John P. Papay, John B. Willett, ...
-
Do Community Colleges Provide a Viable Pathway to a Baccalaureate Degree?
By Bridget Long and Michal Kurlaender
-
By Tomas Konecny and Petr Mateju