Improving College Access at Low-Income High Schools? The Impact of GEAR UP Iowa on Postsecondary Enrollment and Persistence

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas A. Bowman ◽  
Sanga Kim ◽  
Laura Ingleby ◽  
David C. Ford ◽  
Christina Sibaouih
Keyword(s):  
College Access ◽  
Low Income ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
High School Graduates ◽  
Gear Up ◽  
Postsecondary Enrollment ◽  
Education Status ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Undergraduate Programs ◽  
The Impact

GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a federal program designed to promote college access and success for students from low-income backgrounds. Although some literature has examined K–12 outcomes, little research has explored the extent to which GEAR UP achieves its intended postsecondary objectives. The present study used a difference-in-differences design with a sample of 17,605 students to explore the impact of GEAR UP Iowa on college enrollment and persistence. The findings indicate that GEAR UP Iowa promotes the college enrollment of high school graduates by 3 to 4 percentage points, whereas it appears to have no effect on college persistence. Results are similar regardless of students’ socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, sex, and K–12 special education status.

Promoting Educational Success: Which GEAR UP Services Lead to Postsecondary Enrollment and Persistence?

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-130
Author(s):  
Sanga Kim ◽  
Nicholas A. Bowman ◽  
Laura Ingleby ◽  
David C. Ford ◽  
Christina Sibaouih
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Educational Success ◽  
Gear Up ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Postsecondary Enrollment ◽  
Postsecondary Readiness ◽  
Doubly Robust ◽  
Undergraduate Programs ◽  
Postsecondary Attainment ◽  
General Service

Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) is a federal program designed to promote postsecondary readiness and success among low-income students. Some evidence suggests that this program promotes college enrollment and persistence, but GEAR UP may include a wide variety of services, and it is unclear which ones actually contribute to these apparent overall effects. The present study investigates this issue using doubly robust propensity score analyses to provide stronger causal conclusions. Four general service types and seven specific services were examined; the results provide important implications for GEAR UP and other programs designed to promote postsecondary attainment.

scholarly journals Take Two! SAT Retaking and College Enrollment Gaps

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Goodman ◽  
Oded Gurantz ◽  
Jonathan Smith
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Low Income ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
High School Graduates ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Underrepresented Minority ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Sat Scores ◽  
Enrollment Rates ◽  
Enrollment Gaps

Only half of SAT-takers retake the exam, with even lower retake rates among low-income students and underrepresented minority (URM) students. We exploit discontinuous jumps in retake probabilities at multiples of 100, driven by left-digit bias, to estimate retaking’s causal effects. Retaking substantially improves SAT scores and increases four-year college enrollment rates, particularly for low-income and URM students. Eliminating disparities in retake rates could close up to 10 percent of the income-based gap and up to 7 percent of the race-based gap in four-year college enrollment rates of high school graduates. (JEL I21, I23, I24, J15)

The Hidden Costs of Corroboration: Estimating the Effects of Financial Aid Verification on College Enrollment

2021 ◽  
pp. 016237372198930
Author(s):  
Jason C. Lee ◽  
Madison Dell ◽  
Manuel S. González Canché ◽  
Alex Monday ◽  
Amanda Klafehn
Keyword(s):  
Financial Aid ◽  
Low Income ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
High School Graduates ◽  
Underserved Populations ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Student Aid ◽  
Percentage Points

Every year, the U.S. Department of Education selects hundreds of thousands of low-income students to provide additional documentation to corroborate their financial aid eligibility in a process known as verification. Although many are concerned about the potential deleterious effects of being selected, to date, studies are limited to descriptive analyses. To fill this gap in the literature, we use population-level, multicohort data to estimate the effects of financial aid verification on initial college enrollment for recent high school graduates in Tennessee. An entropy balance weighting approach indicates that students selected for verification are 3.8 percentage points (4.9%) less likely to enroll in college with underserved populations and late Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) filers most negatively affected.

A Little Can Go a Long Way: The Impact of Advertising Services on Program Take-Up

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oded Gurantz
Keyword(s):  
High Schools ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
State Aid ◽  
Private Funding ◽  
Postsecondary Enrollment ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Marginal Students ◽  
The Impact

The success of policy interventions is frequently stymied by the inability to induce take-up in target populations. In this article, I show that local advertising in combination with small financial lotteries increases the likelihood that low-income students apply for and receive state aid. I isolate causal impacts by estimating the change in completed aid applications in high schools where the advertising program was canceled due to the expiration of private funding compared with high schools that never participated in the advertising program. Using this differences-in-differences framework, I find that state aid applications declined by approximately 3% to 4% (or roughly four to six applications per high school). Furthermore, postsecondary enrollment in 4-year public colleges declined by about one-half to one percentage point in impacted high schools. These results suggest that small incentives may be a cost-effective means of promoting program take-up for marginal students.

scholarly journals Student Enrollment Patterns and Achievement in Ohio’s Online Charter Schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
June Ahn ◽  
Andrew McEachin
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
School Enrollment ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Enrollment Patterns ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

We utilize state data of nearly 1.7 million students in Ohio to study a specific sector of online education: K–12 schools that deliver most, if not all, education online, lack a brick-and-mortar presence, and enroll students full-time. First, we explore e-school enrollment patterns and how these patterns vary by student subgroups and geography. Second, we evaluate the impact of e-schools on students’ learning, comparing student outcomes in e-schools to outcomes in two other schooling types, traditional charter schools and traditional public schools. Our results show that students and families appear to self-segregate in stark ways where low-income, lower achieving White students are more likely to choose e-schools while low-income, lower achieving minority students are more likely to opt into the traditional charter school sector. Our results also show that students in e-schools are performing worse on standardized assessments than their peers in traditional charter and traditional public schools. We close with policy recommendations and areas for future research.

scholarly journals Improving College Access and Success for Low-Income Students: Evidence from a Large Need-Based Grant Program

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Fack ◽  
Julien Grenet
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Enrollment Decisions ◽  
Grant Programs ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Grant Program ◽  
Enrollment Rates ◽  
The Impact

Using comprehensive administrative data on France's single largest financial aid program, this paper provides new evidence on the impact of large-scale need-based grant programs on the college enrollment decisions, persistence, and graduation rates of low-income students. We exploit sharp discontinuities in the grant eligibility formula to identify the impact of aid on student outcomes at different levels of study. We find that the provision of 1,500 euros cash allowances to prospective undergraduate or graduate students increases their college enrollment rates by 5 to 7 percent. Moreover, we show that need-based grants have positive effects on student persistence and degree completion. (JEL H52, I22, I24, I28, J24)

scholarly journals The Impact of State Financial Aid on College Participation

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Houston D. Davis ◽  
Brian E. Noland ◽  
Nicole McDonald
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Financial Aid ◽  
Low Income ◽  
High School Graduates ◽  
The State ◽  
College Participation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Participation Decisions

In 1999-2000, over 13,000 low-income high school graduates who were eligible for state based financial aid did not receive grant awards because the state of Tennessee had not appropriated sufficient funds for this need based financial aid. The primary purpose for this research was to identify and analyze the college participation decisions of those 13,000 non-recipients of state financial aid in the fall of 1999.

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