We study the welfare and human-capital impacts of the configuration of on- and off-platform options in the context of Chile's centralized higher education platform, leveraging administrative data and two policy changes: an expansion of the number of on-platform slots by approximately 40% and the...

Does student aid increase college attendance or simply subsidize costs for infra-marginal students? Settling the question empirically is a challenge, because aid is correlated with many characteristics that influence educational investment decisions. A shift in financial aid policy that affects...

The Post 9/11 GI Bill (PGIB) is among the largest and most generous college subsidies enacted thus far in the U.S. We examine the impact of the PGIB on veterans' college-going, degree completion, federal education tax benefit utilization, and long run earnings. Among veterans potentially induced...

As a companion paper to our work on students' application and colleges' admission decisions, we have estimated a joint discrete-continuous utility maximization model of college attendance and college completion. The paper is motivated by the possibility that test scores are poor predictors of...

We exploit an episode of plausibly-random debt discharge, due to the inability of National Collegiate to prove chain of title, to examine the effects of student debt relief on individual credit and labor market outcomes. We find that borrowers experiencing this debt relief shock reduce their...

One frequently cited yet understudied channel through which money matters for college students is course availability- colleges may respond to budgetary pressure by reducing course offerings. Open admissions policies, binding class size constraints, and heavy reliance on state funding may make...

For-profit providers are becoming an increasingly important fixture of US higher education markets. Students who attend for-profit institutions take on more educational debt, have worse labor market outcomes, and are more likely to default than students attending similarly-selective public...

This paper examines the influence of parental wealth and income on children's college attendance and parental financing decisions, graduation, and quality of college attended, and whether parental financing affects the subsequent indebtedness of parents and children. We find that higher levels...

Ten states, beginning with Texas and California in 2001, have passed laws permitting undocumented students to pay the in-state tuition rate - rather than the more expensive out-of-state tuition rate - at public universities and colleges. We exploit state-time variation in the passage of the laws...

I analyze the effects of a program that pays both 11th and 12th grade students and teachers for passing scores on Advanced Placement exams on college outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I find that affected students of all ethnicities attend college in greater numbers, have...