This paper estimates the impact of the College Level Examination Program (CLEP), an exam that offers credit for student competency in a content area in lieu of completing a course. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that passing a CLEP exam leads to a 5.5 percent increase in degree...

This paper estimates the impact of the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) examination, a college-level exam that offers credit for student mastery of a content area in lieu of completing a course. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that passing a CLEP exam leads to a 17...

Using the universe of SAT score sends to colleges and the exact date on which these scores are sent, we estimate how students responded to the release of the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard in September 2015. We find that data on annual cost and graduation rate, both of which...

Students starting at a two-year college are much less likely to graduate with a college degree than similar students who start at a four-year college but the sources of this attainment gap are largely unexplained. In this paper we simultaneously investigate the attainment consequences of sector...

We study within-family spillovers in college enrollment to show college-going behavior is transmissible between peers. Because siblings' test scores are weakly correlated, we exploit college-specific admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings' college options....