The federal government and the states have recently enacted a slew of aid policies aimed at college students from middle- and high-income families. I estimate the impact of aid on the college attendance of middle- and upper-income youth by evaluating Georgia's HOPE Scholarship, the inspiration...

The Department of Justice's (DOJ's) investigation of private colleges for price-fixing caused the Overlap' group of colleges to discontinue their meetings. DOJ alleged that the meetings enabled the colleges to collude on higher tuition and increase their tuition revenue. The colleges claimed...

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...

Financial aid programs enable students from families with fewer financial resources to pay less to attend college than other students from families with greater financial resources. When income is uncertain, a means-tested financial aid formula that requires more of an Expected Family...

We explore the role of defaults and choice architecture on student loan decision-making, experimentally testing the impact pre-populating either decline or accept decisions compared to an active choice, no pre-population, decision. We demonstrate that the default choice presented does influence...

Investing in college carries high returns, but comes with considerable risk. Financial products like equity contracts can mitigate this risk, yet college is typically financed through non--dischargeable, government-backed student loans. This paper argues that adverse selection has unraveled...

This paper uses new administrative data with detailed borrower information and lengthy repayment histories from the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) to measure rates of return on undergraduate student loans. We document substantial heterogeneity in returns based on information available at...

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...

Substantial increases in public university tuition often raise concerns about college affordability. But assessment of the impacts on low- and moderate-income families requires consideration of whether net tuition--tuition less grant aid--has increased commensurately. This paper describes recent...

Proposed "free college" policies vary widely in design. The simplest approach sets tuition to zero for everyone. More targeted approaches limit free tuition to those who successfully demonstrate need through an application process. We experimentally test the effects of these two models on the...