Revisiting Financial Aids : Insights from Key Drivers on Household Consumption on Higher Education In Vietnam

This paper investigates the key determinants affecting household spending for uni- versity students in Vietnam. We employ innovative variable selection approach with adaptive LASSO for Tobit Regression Model. The results suggest income, region, and ethnicity play significant roles in determining higher education expenditure at Vietnamese households. Gender-related indicators (such as gender of household head, student’s gender), distance to school, occupations, etc. are empirically insignificant. This paper serve as empirical evidences for policy makers to design a more effective financial assistance framework for Higher education system in Vietnam