Increasing Degree Attainment among Low-Income Students: The Role of Intensive Advising and College Quality

Andrew Barr and Benjamin Castleman

American Economic Review, 2025, vol. 115, issue 11, 4075-4103

Abstract: A college degree offers a pathway to economic mobility for low-income students. Using a multisite randomized controlled trial combined with administrative and survey data, we demonstrate that intensive advising during high school and college significantly increases bachelor's degree attainment among lower-income students. We leverage unique data on preadvising college preferences and causal forest methods to show that these gains are primarily driven by improvements in initial enrollment quality. Our results suggest that strategies targeting college choice may be a more effective and efficient means of increasing degree attainment than those focused solely on affordability.

JEL-codes: G51 I21 I22 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20240669 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24142 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24143 (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:11:p:4075-4103

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

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20240669

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

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