Stefanie DeLuca and Elizabeth Burland have been invited to give a talk on education policy, and how students make decisions about postsecondary education.

The talk will take place on February 16th from 12-1pm at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, at the University of Michigan.

“New Perspectives on College Choice: The Role of Family, Gender, and Career Planning in the Education Decisions of College Ready Students from Families With Low Incomes”

Postsecondary education plays a vital role in promoting intergenerational mobility in the United States; however, there are large and growing gaps in college attendance, college quality, and college completion rates by family income. As a policy response, colleges and universities have tried to increase economic diversity, and several interventions have been promising. For this project, we conducted semi-structured narrative interviews with over 100 high school students within a randomized, controlled trial (the HAIL Scholarship Study) to understand student decision making, and to explain the mechanisms that make the HAIL Scholarship intervention so successful. In this context, we are able to unpack how some students are able to make the leap to pursuing higher education (despite their financial vulnerability) as one key cost is relaxed (tuition); however, we observe that many students still face different forms of uncertainty that make the postsecondary decision challenging. Beyond the cost of tuition, students consider additional trade-offs informed by their social supports, their career goals and strategies, and non-tuition costs students expect to face. This work helps inform ways in which we can supplement financial aid provision with other kinds of support that best meet student needs.