State Merit-based Financial Aid Programs and College Attainment

David Sjoquist and John Winters

No 6801, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine the effects of recently adopted state merit-based financial aid programs on college attendance and degree completion. Our primary analysis uses microdata from the 2000 Census and 2001-2010 American Community Survey to estimate the effects of merit programs on educational outcomes for 25 merit aid adopting states. We also utilize administrative data for the University System of Georgia to look more in depth at the effects of the HOPE Scholarship on degree completion in Georgia. We find strong consistent evidence that state merit aid programs have no meaningfully positive effect on college completion. Coefficient estimates for our preferred specifications are small and statistically insignificant. State merit aid programs do not appear to increase the percentage of young people with a college education.

Keywords: degree completion; college attainment; HOPE; merit aid; higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I23 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2012-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Published - published in: Journal of Regional Science, 2015, 55(3), 364-390

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Related works:
Journal Article: STATE MERIT-BASED FINANCIAL AID PROGRAMS AND COLLEGE ATTAINMENT (2015)
Working Paper: State Merit-based Financial Aid Programs and College Attainment (2014)
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