Postsecondary Decision-making Study
Funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University.
Background
There are well-documented and growing gaps in college attendance and completion rates by income. Low-income students are less likely to go to college and often attend less selective institutions than their qualifications would allow, diminishing their educational attainment and long-term earnings, while increasing debt. As a policy response, colleges and universities have tried to increase economic diversity, and several interventions have been promising.
One example is a rigorously evaluated intervention at the University of Michigan (UM). In fall 2016, UM implemented the HAIL Scholarship Study, an RCT to test whether the offer of personalized financial aid can increase enrollment of students from low-income families. HAIL is a low-cost, personalized intervention providing a no-strings-attached, four-year guaranteed scholarship offer to high-achieving low-income students to attend UM. HAIL has been very successful-- more than doubling application and enrollment at UM among Michigan students from low-income families. Alongside these large effects, three additional findings merit attention: one-third of the students who received the HAIL offer never applied to UM; one-fifth of those admitted did not attend UM; and the students more likely to apply were low-income rural students attending high schools where few (if any) had ever attended UM.
To better understand the mechanisms and take-up rates for the HAIL Scholarship Study, PIRL is conducting qualitative interviews with HAIL-eligible high school seniors in Michigan alongside a team at UM. Our sample includes 90 high school students and their parents.
Publications
Dynarski, Susan; Libassi, C.J.; Michelmore, Katherine; Owen, Stephanie. "Closing the Gap: The Effect of a Targeted, Tuition-free Promise on College Choices for High-achieving, Low-income Students." National Bureau of Economic Research/NBER Working Paper Series, Dec. 2018. http://www.nber.org/papers/w25349