Proposed "free college" policies vary widely in design. The simplest approach sets tuition to zero for everyone. More targeted approaches limit free tuition to those who successfully demonstrate need through an application process. We experimentally test the effects of these two models on the...

Low-income students, even those with strong academic credentials, are unlikely to attend a highly selective college. With a field experiment, we test an intervention to increase enrollment of low-income students at the highly selective University of Michigan. We contact students (as well as...

Gaps in educational achievement between high- and low-income children are growing. Administrative datasets maintained by states and districts lack information about income but do indicate whether a student is eligible for subsidized school meals. We leverage the longitudinal structure of these...

We ask why so few student loan borrowers enroll in Income Driven Repayment when the majority would benefit from doing so. To do so we run an incentivized laboratory experiment using a facsimile of the government's Student Loan Exit Counseling website. We test the role information complexity,...

This paper examines the effect of early childhood investments on college enrollment and degree completion. We use the random assignment in the Project STAR experiment to estimate the effect of smaller classes in primary school on college entry, college choice, and degree completion. We improve...

The increasing tension between the perceived necessity of a college degree and the challenge of paying for it has led to a proliferation of financial aid policy in the U.S. and around the world. More students are receiving more aid today, and more different types of aid, than ever before. Half a...

Non-financial barriers to college are an important possible explanation for socioeconomic, racial, gender, and other gaps in college access and success. A sizeable economic literature documents policy efforts to understand and address these barriers. We review this literature on non-financial...

Lottery-based identification strategies offer potential for generating the next generation of evidence on U.S. early education programs. Our collaborative network of five research teams applying this design in early education and methods experts has identified six challenges that need to be...

Over the last several decades, there have been historic shifts in the structure of cash transfer programs in Western, developed countries, including the U.S., Canada, and U.K. For all three of these countries, the turn of the 21st century marked a shift away from unconditional cash transfer...

This paper examines the incentives created by the 529 and Coverdell tax-advantaged savings accounts. I find that the advantages of the 529 and Coverdell rise sharply with income, for three reasons. First, those with the highest marginal tax rates benefit the most from sheltering income, gaining...