Document Category: Research Study

The Returns to College Persistence for Marginal Students: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from University Dismissal Policies (2018)

We estimate the returns to college using administrative data on both college enrollment and earnings. Exploiting that colleges dismiss low-performing students on the basis of exact GPA cutoffs, we use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the earnings impacts of college. Dismissal leads to a short-run increase in earnings and tuition savings, but the future fall in earnings is sufficiently large that 8 years after dismissal, persisting students have already recouped their up-front investment with an internal rate of return of 4.1%. We provide a variety of evidence that manipulation of the running variable does not drive our results.

State divestment and tuition at public institutions (2017)

This study examines the pass-through rate of changes in public funding to tuition and fees paid by students. Using an instrumental variable-fixed effects identification strategy, I estimate that a $1000 per student decrease in funding leads to the typical student paying $257 more each year in costs, with. However, both the pass-through rate and the proportion of tuition increases which can be explained by state divestment have increased over time. The pass-through rate increased from 10.3% prior to the year 2000 to 31.8% post-2000. I outline several avenues of future research which should be pursued in order to more fully understand which students shoulder the burden of reductions in public support.

Do expenditures other than instructional expenditures affect graduation and persistence rates in American higher education? (2010)

During the last two decades, median instructional spending per full-time equivalent (FTE) student at American 4-year colleges and universities has grown at a slower rate than median spending per FTE student in a number of other expenditure categories, including academic support, student services and research. Our paper uses institutional level panel data and a variety of econometric approaches, including unconditional quantile regression methods, to analyze whether these non-instructional expenditure categories influence graduation and first-year persistence rates of undergraduate students.

Our most important finding is that student service expenditures influence graduation and persistence rates and their marginal effects are higher for students at institutions with lower entrance test scores and higher Pell Grant expenditures per student. Put another way, their effects are largest at institutions that have lower current graduation and first-year persistence rates. Simulations suggest that reallocating some funding from instruction to student services may enhance persistence and graduation rates at those institutions whose rates are currently below the medians in the sample.

Connecting College Students to Alternative Sources of Support: The Single Stop Community College Initiative and Postsecondary Outcomes (2020)

Single Stop U.S.A.’s Community College Initiative was designed to improve the well-being of low-income communities by connecting individuals to public benefits and other institutional and community resources to address nonacademic barriers to college completion. Through offices located on community college campuses, Single Stop provides students with a range of free services, including screenings and applications for public benefit programs; tax services, financial counseling, and legal services; and case management with referrals to a wide variety of resources and support programs across the institution and community. This report presents an evaluation of the Single Stop program and its impact on students’ postsecondary outcomes. The authors examined the Single Stop program at four community college systems: Bunker Hill Community College, City University of New York, Delgado Community College, and Miami Dade College. The analysis indicates that use of Single Stop was associated with improved postsecondary outcomes. The findings suggest that access to alternative financial resources from government benefit programs alongside a network of institutional and community support programs can offer valuable support to college students.

The Real Price of College (2016)

The high price of college is the subject of media headlines, policy debates, and dinner table conversations because of its implications for educational opportunities, student and family pocketbooks, and the economy.1 Some people caution against giving too much weight to the advertised price of a college education, pointing out that the availability of financial aid means that college is not as expensive as people think it is.2 But they overlook a substantial problem: for many students, the real price of college is much higher than what recruitment literature, conventional wisdom, and even official statistics convey. Our research indicates that the current approach to higher education financing too often leaves low-income students facing unexpected, and sometimes untenable, expenses.