Can targeted information affect academic performance and borrowing behavior for college students? Evidence from administrative data

Christiana Stoddard, Carly Urban and Maximilian Schmeiser

Economics of Education Review, 2017, vol. 56, issue C, 95-109

Abstract: More students than ever borrow to finance post-secondary education. However, students receive little information during the course of their college career that encourages them to recalibrate loan amounts and to consider academic and borrowing decisions jointly. This paper exploits a natural experiment to understand how targeted information can change student behavior. We study a large public university where students above a given debt threshold received letters with bundled information on student loan debt and effectively completing college, while students below the threshold did not. Using a difference-in-difference strategy and administrative data on individual-level academic records and borrowing, the intervention did not change borrowing in the subsequent semester but improved academic outcomes: credits completed and GPAs increased in the subsequent semester and retention rates increased.

Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:56:y:2017:i:c:p:95-109

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.12.004

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