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

David Sjoquist and John Winters

No 9371, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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 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 results suggest that state merit aid programs do not reduce the likelihood that a student attends a top ranked school, but that these programs do reduce the likelihood of enrolling at less prestigious out-of-state schools, with generally larger effects the lower the ranking of the schools.

Keywords: elite college; college quality; college choice; merit aid (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H31 I22 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lma and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Forthcoming - published in: Southern Economic Journal, 2016, 83 (2), 527-549

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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 (2016)
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