COLLEGE ACCESS AND AFFORDABILITY ~ OVERVIEW PIECES

"The Effectiveness of Financial Aid in Improving College Enrollment: Lessons for Policy." Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Higher Education.
Years of research support the notion that financial aid can influence students’ postsecondary decisions, but questions remain about the best ways to design and implement such programs and policies. This paper serves as a discussion of the research literature on the effectiveness of financial aid with special attention to its implications for policy.  As such, the goal of this paper is to address issues core to today’s debates about how to improve college access and affordability while encouraging researchers to continue to advance the line of inquiry.

"What Is Known About the Impact of Financial Aid? Implications for Policy." National Center for Postsecondary Research(NCPR) Working Paper (2008). Available at: http://www.postsecondaryresearch.org/i/a/document/6963_LongFinAid.pdf

“The Transition to College: Contributions from the Economics Literature” (2007) Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Transitions to College Project. Teachers College Record.
This essay provides a comprehensive review of work by economists and others in related quantitative disciplines on the transition of students to college. A particular emphasis is given to the importance of price and financial aid although the role of many other factors is also investigated. Although it would be impossible to discuss each and every contribution to the literature, the goal is to give the reader a sense of the types of research that have been done and the models, methods, and data used.

“Financial Aid: A Broken Bridge to College Access?” (2007) With Erin K. Riley. Harvard Educational Review.
The article discusses how merit-based aid and education tax breaks are increasingly replacing need-based aid and how the declining role of grants, as opposed to loans, may disproportionately disadvantage low-income students and students of color.  We also document the rise in students' unmet financial needs over the past decade, showing that low-income students and students of color are especially likely to face unmet need even after all grants, loans, and family contributions are taken into account.  In response to these trends, we call for a greater emphasis on need-based aid, especially grants, to reduce the role of cost as a barrier to college access.

Paying for College: The Rising Cost of Higher Education (2006) With Dana Ansel and Greg Leiserson. Boston: MassINC. Available at: http://www.massinc.org/index.php?id=216&pub_id=1828
This report focuses on college access and affordability issues in New England. At the same time that a college education has become the ticket to the middle class, college has become less affordable. The situation in New England is worse than it is nationally. Even though incomes are higher in the region, families are likely spending a higher share of their income to pay for college.

THE ROLE OF INFORMATION IN COLLEGE ACCESS

The H&R Block FAFSA Simplication Experiment: "Increasing College Enrollment among Low- and Moderate-Income Families:An Intervention to Improve Information and Access to Financial Aid" Joint work with Eric Bettinger and Phil Oreopoulos.
Concerns about the low visibility of aid programs and the complexity of the aid process have spurred calls to simplify the form and enhance the visibility of programs that are meant to educate students about the availability of financial aid.  However, little research has been done to determine whether such policies would truly address the problems of access for low-income students.  This project provides an intervention that streamlines both the aid application process and students' access to accurate and personalized higher educational information. Using a random assignment research design, H&R Block tax professionals are helping a group of eligible low- to moderate-income families to complete the federal aid application form (FAFSA).  Then, families are immediately given an estimate of their eligibility for federal and state financial aid as well as information about local postsecondary options.  To track the impact of this intervention, the project data are being linked with college administrative files to determine which individuals elected to enroll and persist in higher education.  In summary, our research will examine the effects of a program that attempts to increase awareness about aid and simplify the application process.  We will test the importance of simplifying college financial aid and providing guidance and encouragement throughout the application process.  Moreover, we will examine how providing information about expected financial aid awards impacts college decisions.  Our analysis will answer key questions about the importance of information and financial barriers in college access and persistence.  Moreover, we aim to provide concrete examples of ways to improve college access for low-income students and the effectiveness of financial aid policies. 
For a General Description of the FAFSA Simplification Project , click here.
For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the project, click here.

"Making It Easy and Attractive to Save for College: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment." Joint work with Eric Bettinger and Phil Oreopoulos. Funding applications submitted.
The purpose of the proposed research is to implement an intervention that provides information about 529 College Savings Accounts and provide incentives for individuals to invest in such accounts.  We also propose to gather data showing the effects of the simplification and incentives on college savings behavior and eventual on college outcomes.

"The Role of Perceptions and Information in College Access: An Exploratory Review of the Literature and Possible Data Sources." (2004) Boston: The Education Resources Institute (TERI).

STUDIES OF THE ROLE OF PRICE & FINANCIAL AID

"Does the Format of an Aid Program Matter? The Effect of In-Kind Tuition Subsidies." (2004) Review of Economics and Statistics. Vol. 86, No. 3.
This paper examines the importance of format in aid programs focusing on state appropriations to public postsecondary institutions. While these funds subsidize costs for in-state students, they may also affect choices between institutions due to their in-kind format. Using the conditional logistic choice model and extensive match-specific information, the paper approximates the choice between nearly 2,700 college options to examine the impact of several dissimilar state systems. Moreover, it simulates how decisions would change if the aid were fungible.

"How have College Decisions Changed Overtime? An Application of the Conditional Logistic Choice Model" (2004) Journal of Econometrics. Vol. 121, No. 1-2: pp. 271-296.
This paper analyzes the postsecondary decisions of high school graduates from 1972, 1982, and 1992 to understand how the roles of college costs and quality have changed. Two college decisions are examined. First, how did individuals choose between colleges? Second, how did college characteristics affect whether individuals attended college? The paper approximates a person's college outlook by exploiting extensive match-specific information between students and colleges and including the thousands of alternatives available to prospective students.

"The Impact of Federal Tax Credits for Higher Education" (2004) In Hoxby, C. M., ed. College Choices: The Economics of Which College, When College, and How to Pay For It. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The 1997 creation of the Hope and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits marked a dramatic shift in the way in which federal support for college expenses is distributed to students and their families. However, unlike other aid programs, the tax credits have exceptionally broad eligibility requirements, and there is a significant delay between when a recipient enrolls in college and when they receive the benefit. This study examines the impact of the tax credits on students, families, colleges, and states.

"How does the Availability of Loans affect College Access? Learning from the History of Loan Limits." Under revision.
With substantial private and social returns, higher education has become an important national investment. However, access is questionable for many due to the inability to secure the funds necessary to pay tuition. Therefore, since the 1960s, the Federal government has offered students loans through the Stafford, Perkins, and PLUS Loan Programs. In recent years, loans have become the primary form of financial aid with over $47.7 billion being dispersed during the 2002-03 school year. However, little is understood about how the availability of these resources has impacted college participation and persistence. Moreover, policy-makers currently debate whether the loan limits set over ten years ago are sufficiently high enough to enable attendance given the price of college today. This paper addresses these issues by analyzing the impact of a substantial increase in the Federal loan limit. Using the October Current Population Survey, I exploit several treatment groups employing a differences-in-differences methodology.

"Do Loans Increase College Access and Choice? Examining the Introduction of Universal Student Loans." (2007) Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, New England Public Policy Center, Working Paper No. 07-1. Available at: http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/neppc/wp/2007/neppcwp0701.pdf
This paper attempts to provide additional information on the impact of loans on college decisions by focusing on the period during which college loans were made available to all families, regardless of financial need. The major shift in aid policy occurred due to the 1992 Higher Education Reauthorization Act (HEA92). By exploiting this 1992 policy change as a natural experiment, this paper examines the impact of introducing a student loan program on college enrollment and choice. The analysis uses the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) to detail how the number of students in college (e.g., the access question) and the amount of money spent on higher education and related expenses (e.g., the choice question or "how much" education was bought) changed after the policy change.

“The Demand Side of Loans: The Changing Face of Borrowers.”(2007) With Erin K. Riley. In Frederick Hess, Ed. Footing the Tuition Bill: The New Student Loan Sector. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.

"The Distribution of State Tuition Subsidies: Who Benefits? Who Pays?" Under revision.
State appropriations to public colleges and universities constitute the most generous financial aid program in the United States amounting to over $56 billion during the 1999-2000 school year. These state funds serve as indirect tuition subsidies that allow public colleges to charge in-state students a discounted price. However, since they are awarded generally without respect to income, the allocation of the aid has major implications for equity within the tax system. While all income groups pay taxes, college attendance is primarily a middle-to-upper income activity, particularly at the highly-subsidized public flagship universities, and therefore, the policy could be regressive. This paper revisits this issue by comparing the distribution of the tuition subsidies while accounting for the significant variation in the amount of state subsidy received at different kinds of colleges and within different states. Furthermore, my analysis considers how the behavior of students from families with different income levels varies in terms of the likelihood of college enrollment and the college an individual chooses to attend.

COLLEGE ACCESS FOR SPECIFIC POPULATIONS

"The Reversal of the College Gender Gap: The Role of Alternatives and College Supply." Under revision.
During the last decade, women have surpassed in men in a number of postsecondary outcomes including college enrollment. Currently, 55 percent of college students are women (NCES, 2004). This trend could have serious implications for returns in the labor market as well as social outcomes such as marriage and fertility. This paper explores several possible explanations for the reversal of the gender gap. While past work has focused on the college wage premium, I also take into account the role of secondary school performance by gender, non-labor market alternatives such as the military and incarceration, and changes in the availability of different kinds of colleges (e.g. community colleges). The empirical framework uses state-level variation in these factors during the last three decades to examine these hypotheses.

"College Access in the New Millennium: The Growing Importance of Gender." With Stella Flores. Work in progress.

"Financial Aid and Older Workers: Supporting the Nontraditional Student." (in press) Strategies for the Improving Economic Mobility of Workers. Chicago: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Getting Serious About Lifelong Learning: Improving the Use and Value of the Hope and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits for Working Adults Students. (2004) With Victoria Choitz and Laura Dowd. Arlington, MA: FutureWorks.

"Diversity by Any Other Name: Are there Viable Alternatives to Affirmative Action in Higher Education?" (2003) The Western Journal of Black Studies, vol. 27, no.1, pp. 20-30.