The Effects of State Merit Aid Programs on Attendance at Elite Colleges

David Sjoquist and John Winters

No 1610, Economics Working Paper Series from Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business

Abstract: State merit aid programs have been found to reduce the likelihood that students attend college out-of-state. Using the U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) rankings of colleges and universities to measure college quality and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System data to measure enrollment, we explore how this reduction in out-of-state enrollment differs by the academic quality of the institution. Our difference-in-differences results suggest that state merit aid programs do not induce students to forgo attending top 15 ranked schools. However, state merit aid does induce some students to forgo attending out-of-state schools ranked below the top 15 and shifts them toward lower quality in-state schools, so that the net effect is a reduction in academic quality, as measured by USNWR. These effects may have long-term implications for students’ degree completion rates and labor market earnings.

Keywords: merit aid; college choice; college quality; elite colleges (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H31 I22 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2016-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Effects of State Merit Aid Programs on Attendance at Elite Colleges (2016)
Working Paper: The Effects of State Merit Aid Programs on Attendance at Elite Colleges (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:okl:wpaper:1610

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