Although thousands of studies in developing countries have evaluated whether specific interventions improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged students, few have focused on comprehensive reforms. The goal of this study is to examine how a comprehensive package of demand- and supply-side...

Past studies find that disadvantaged students in the United States are often misinformed about college costs and financial aid opportunities and thus may make sub-optimal decisions regarding college. This information problem may be even more serious in developing countries. We therefore...

Recent studies have shown that only about two-thirds of the students from poor, rural areas in China finish junior high school and enter high school. One factor that may be behind the low rates of high school attendance is that students may be misinformed about the returns to schooling or lack...

China's central government incrementally introduced various kinds of student financial aid since the late 1990s in response to public concerns about the rising burden of college prices. Despite the marked increase in financial assistance from governmental as well as non-governmental sources in...

We estimate the impact of two early commitment of financial aid (ECFA) programs—one at the start and one near the end of junior high school (seventh and ninth grades, respectively)—on the outcomes of poor, rural junior high students in China. Our results demonstrate that neither of the ECFA...

A significant gap remains between rural and urban students in the rate of admission to senior high school. One reason for this gap may be high tuition and other school fees at the senior high school level. By reducing student expectations of attending high school, high tuition and school fees...

In this paper we estimate the effect of original countries’ GDP per capita on China’s inbound international students, with panel data during time period of 1999-2011, using a gravity model. And we contribute to the literature in multiple dimensions: Firstly, we carefully examined the effect...

The rapid expansion of enrollment capacity in China's colleges since the late 1990s has come at the price of high tuition hikes. China's government has put forth financial aid programs to enable poor students to access higher education. Although studies have shown that poor high school students...