Intended College Enrollment and Educational Inequality: Do Students Lack Information?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractDespite increasing access to university education, students from disadvantaged or non-academic family backgrounds are still underrepresented at universities. In this regard, the economic literature mainly studies the effect of financial constraints on post-secondary educational decisions. Our knowledge on potential effects of other constraints regarding university education is more limited. We investigate the causal relationship between information and educational expectations using data from a German randomized controlled trial in which students in high schools were treated with information on the benefits as well as on different funding possibilities for university education. We find that the provision of information increases intended college enrollment for students from a non-academic family background, while it leads students from academic backgrounds to lower their enrollment intentions. Our results suggest that educational inequality can be reduced by providing students with relevant information, while simultaneously improving post-secondary education matches.Keywords: Randomized Controlled Trial, Information Deficit, Educational Expectation, College Enrollment, Educational Inequality JEL: I21, I24, J24$ We especially thank our colleagues from the project team at DIW Berlin -C. Katharina Spieß, Johanna Storck, and Mathias Huebener; and at WZB -Heike Solga, Alessandra Rusconi, Claudia Finger, and Martin Ehlert. Moreover, we thank Susan Dynarski, Brian McCall and Astrid Würtz Rasmussen as well as participants of the 6th IWAEE conference, the 4th SOLE/EALE world conference, the 2015 EEA Annual Congress and the 2016 AEA Annual Meeting for valuable comments. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Einstein Foundation Berlin (A-2010-025 (FU)). The usual disclaimer applies.

Informing Students about College: An Efficient Way to Decrease the Socio-Economic Gap in Enrollment: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

“…In contrast to the results ofPeter and Zambre (2017), who show that the information workshop affects students from different educational backgrounds differently in the short run, the longer run effects of the information workshop do not differ significantly by students' educational background.…”

“…Evidence for a presumably stronger impact on students with intentions to enroll is found by a previous study based on earlier waves of the panel we use. Peter and Zambre (2017) show that the information workshop affected students' intentions one year later. This treatment effect mainly works through stabilizing non-college background students' post-secondary educational plans.…”

“…However, effects are imprecisely estimated in this subsample, such that statistical significance at conventional levels cannot be established. 37 Considering the short run results of an earlier study using Best Up-data by Peter and Zambre (2017), who show that the information workshop mostly helps students to maintain their post-secondary educational plans, we additionally look at the likelihood of students at the margin to enroll in college in Table 5. Column 4 shows that, for these marginal students, the information workshop increases the probability to directly apply or enroll in college by around 12 or 13 pp.…”

What works to reduce inequalities in higher education? A systematic review of the (quasi-)experimental literature on outreach and financial aid

“…For example, in the U.S., Avery and Kane (2004) found that there was only a weak connection between students' estimations of net returns from higher education and plans to attend college. However, there is also evidence that information interventions are efficient in changing beliefs about cost or returns from higher education and intentions to attend (Bleemer & Zafar, 2018;Oreopoulos & Dunn, 2012;Peter & Zambre, 2017). One study found that providing additional information about grants did not change college intentions but did increase college application behaviors (Ehlert, Finger, Rusconi, & Solga, 2017).…”

Different counselors, many options: Career guidance and career plans in secondary schools

“…Existing studies for Europe indicate that the availability of information on possible career paths and educational investments tend to improve transitions into the labor market (Saniter et al, 2019;Peter and Zambre, 2017;Boockmann and Nielen, 2016) [Germany], Hoest et al (2013) [Denmark], and Borghans et al (2015) [Netherlands]. As a methodological aspect, which proves important for our study, Borghans et al (2015) show that variation in the take-up of counseling across schools is strong, which the study uses to instrument individual counseling.…”