Inequalities do not end once students enter higher education. Yet, the majority of papers on the effectiveness of education aid examine its impact on college enrolment. In this paper, we provide evidence on the causal impact of means-tested financial aid on the outcomes of students who have...

This paper estimates the effects of a 2008 policy that eliminated tuition fees at public universities in Ecuador. We use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation across cohorts differentially exposed to the policy, as well as geographic variation in access to public...

Following a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2005, more than half of Germany's universities started charging tuition fees, which also applied to incumbent students. We exploit this unusual lack of grandfathering together with register data covering the universe of students to show...

Following a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2005, more than half of Germany's universities started charging tuition fees, which also applied to incumbent students. We exploit this unusual lack of grandfathering together with register data covering the universe of students to show...

This paper estimates the effects of a 2008 policy that eliminated tuition fees at public universities in Ecuador. We use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation across cohorts differentially exposed to the policy, as well as geographic variation in access to public...

We characterize the outcomes of the tertiary education market in a context where borrowing constraints bind, there is a two-tier college system operating under monopolistic competition in which colleges differ by the quality offered and returns to education depend on the quality of the school...

One of the most frequently examined relationships in education economics is the impact of tuition increases on the demand for higher education. We provide a quantitative synthesis of 443 estimates of this effect reported in 43 studies. While large negative estimates dominate the literature, we...

To estimate causal effects of college choice, we exploit eligibility rules for student loans in a regression discontinuity design. Loan programs induce students to pursue college degrees that are more expensive and prolonged relative to technical education. Although higher education is...

This study examines the impact of the charging of tuition fees between 2006 and 2014 in several German federal states on the number of first-year student enrollments. Since Germany is known for a tuition-free education policy at public institutions, the fundamental question arises of whether,...

Five years after introducing tuition fees, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) abolished them in March 2011. Using student-level panel data, we assess the effects of this reform on academic activity and performance in two universities in NRW: a state university and a private...