Susan Dynarski (Harvard)

Title

A Pathway to Mobility: Shifting Low-Income Students To Higher-Quality Degrees

Abstract

Earnings inequality has increasingly grown within education groups, especially among college graduates (Autor, Goldin, and Katz 2020). Returns to a bachelor’s degree vary sharply across institutions, yet low-income students disproportionately earn degrees at open-access and less selective colleges. We evaluate a randomized intervention designed to increase enrollment and degree attainment at a highly selective public flagship among high-achieving, low-income students. Students offered a guarantee of four years of free tuition at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor shifted enrollment away from less selective colleges. The offer increased the probability of earning a BA from a highly selective institution by 11.6 percentage points (78 percent) and increased four-year BA completion by 4 percentage points (11 percent), with no effect on six-year BA attainment. We find no evidence of academic mismatch, including no reduction in STEM degree completion. Finally, the induced shift into the flagship implies a projected 40 percent increase in age-30 earnings among students induced to attend the flagship.