Merit Aid, College Quality, and College Completion: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy

Sarah Cohodes and Joshua Goodman ()

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2014, vol. 6, issue 4, 251-85

Abstract: We analyze a Massachusetts merit aid program that gives highscoring students tuition waivers at in-state public colleges with lower graduation rates than available alternative colleges. A regression discontinuity design comparing students just above and below the eligibility threshold finds that students are remarkably willing to forgo college quality and that scholarship use actually lowered college completion rates. These results suggest that college quality affects college completion rates. The theoretical prediction that inking subsidies of public institutions can reduce consumption of the subsidized good is shown to be empirically important.

JEL-codes: H75 I22 I23 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.6.4.251
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (152)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.6.4.251 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/0604/2013-0308_data.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/app/0604/2013-0308_app.pdf (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/ds/0604/2013-0308_ds.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Merit Aid, College Quality and College Completion: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy (2013)
Working Paper: Merit Aid, College Quality and College Completion: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:6:y:2014:i:4:p:251-85

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().