Elizabeth Burland, Susan Dynarski, Katherine Michelmore, Stephanie Owen, Shwetha Raghuraman
American Economic Review: Insights (2023)
Abstract: Proposed “free college” policies vary widely in design. The simplest set tuition to zero for everyone. More targeted approaches limit free tuition to those who demonstrate need through an application process. We experimentally test the effects of these two models on the schooling decisions of low-income students. An unconditional free tuition offer from a large public university substantially increases application and enrollment rates. A free tuition offer contingent on proof of need has a much smaller effect on application and none on enrollment. These results are consistent with students placing a high value on financial certainty when making schooling decisions.
American Economic Review: Insights (2023).
Elizabeth Burland
Under Review
Abstract: Sociologists have long documented the contribution of family background on educational inequality, and the role of significant others in shaping access to educational and economic opportunity. However, the mechanisms through which siblings—distinct from parents or other significant others—may influence students’ educational attainment are underexplored. Drawing on 59 longitudinal qualitative interviews with 36 high school seniors from families with low incomes, I explore the types of information students draw upon during the transition to adulthood, and how the information students rely on might contribute to unequal postsecondary outcomes. I find that having a sibling navigate postsecondary education before them leads to information, hands-on support, and material resource sharing that simplifies the process for younger siblings. I argue that social capital from siblings has distinct characteristics that make it unique, providing access to resources and support that are otherwise difficult to obtain.
Elizabeth Burland and Stefanie DeLuca
Abstract: While college enrollment rates have risen in the past few decades, difficult questions remain about how to serve our young adults as they try to make their way from high school through postsecondary education and into careers. Using qualitative interviews with 137 high school seniors from low-income families to understand how high-achieving low-income students experience, perceive, and assess risk in the college decision-making process. Our sample is drawn from a randomized controlled trial, which evaluates a free-tuition guarantee at a highly selective public flagship institution. This experimental variation allows us to explore what considerations remain when the cost of tuition is relaxed. We find that the fears students experience around the cost of college run much deeper than only the concrete expenses of tuition and housing. Student’s assessment of risk is internalized from their social and cultural contexts and shapes how they experience and make decisions during their transition to adulthood. The current postsecondary landscape places most of the uncertainty of the transition to adulthood (including financial, career, and safety-net) onto students and their families. We find that high-performing low-income students—even those with the tuition-guarantee—worry about whether the investment in a four-year degree is worth it. As a result of this risk assessment, students enact a number of risk minimization strategies to get a better sense of what they want to do, and how they will get experience doing it, most resulting in a delay of their college enrollment.
Elizabeth Burland, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, Xavier Fields, Kelcie Gerson, Kathy Michelmore, Nathan Sotherland, Kevin Stange, Marissa Thompson, and Megan Tompkins-Stange.
Under Review
Abstract: In the United States, social welfare programs often have low take-up, where only a fraction of eligible beneficiaries receive the resources that they are eligible for. We examine this problem through the lens of Michigan’s Tuition Incentive Program (TIP), a state grant aid program that provides free community college to low-income students based on their childhood participation in Medicaid. To investigate TIP take-up, we conduct a large-scale mixed-methods study using comprehensive data on over one million Michigan public school students over 11 cohorts, and 55 interviews with program administrators, high school counselors, and financial aid staff. We find that while one third of Michigan high school graduates are eligible for TIP, its take-up rate is only 14 percent, limiting its impact on college affordability. Our results show that TIP take-up is higher for students who have early and consistent Medicaid enrollment, and for students in schools with a high proportion of TIP-eligible students. We identify key barriers that play a significant role in shaping take-up: the presence of administrative burdens, and the constraints faced by front-line administrators in alleviating these burdens when administrative responsibility for grant aid is fractured and ill-defined. Other safety net programs could experience similar challenges.
Elizabeth Burland, Nora Delany, Susan Dynarski, Katie Leu, CJ Libassi, Katherine Michelmore, Stephanie Owen, Liz Salinas, and Mary Quiroga
Elizabeth Burland, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, Xavier Fields, Nathan Sotherland, and Megan Tompkins-Stange
Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija and Elizabeth Burland
Elizabeth Burland
Postsecondary Decision Making Study (with Stefanie DeLuca)
Visit our Project Site (and here).
There are well-documented and growing gaps in college attendance and completion rates by income. Students from families with low-incomes are less likely to go to college and often attend less selective institutions than their qualifications would allow, diminishing their educational attainment and long-term earnings, while increasing debt. As a policy response, colleges and universities have tried to increase economic diversity, and several interventions have been promising. We implemented a large-scale, longitudinal qualitative study within a randomized, controlled trial (the HAIL Scholarship Study) to understand student decision making, and to explain the mechanisms that make the HAIL Scholarship intervention so successful. We have thus far conducted over 100 in-depth interviews with students, and over 50 in-depth interviews with parents. We are currently conducting follow-up interviews with students a few years into their transition to postsecondary education or work.
Current Funding: Russell Sage Foundation (PIs: Elizabeth Burland and Stefanie DeLuca)
Previous Funders: Smith Richardson Foundation (PIs: Stefanie DeLuca and Susan Dynarski), University of Michigan's Poverty Solutions, the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University
Early First-Dollar Categorical Need-Based Aid: A New Model for Making College Affordable?
See the press release here and our project website here.
In this mixed-methods evaluation, we are working to understand how the Tuition Incentive Program (TIP), a state-run first-dollar free community college program for Michigan students experiencing financial hardship, impacts postsecondary outcomes for high school students from families with low-incomes. This project uses qualitative interviews, descriptive analysis of administrative data, and quasi-experimental program evaluation to understand program take-up, key stake-holder experience, and whether the program is effective at increasing access to postsecondary education (and why or why not). We are pairing analysis of administrative data with qualitative interviews with program implementation staff, school counselors, students, and parents. Through these interviews, we plan to unpack program take-up heterogeneity identified in the quantitative data analysis: what is working, what is not working, and who is facing barriers to access this grant funding. Further, we hope to understand what can be done to improve the state of Michigan's policy efforts to make college accessible and affordable for all students.
Current Funding: the Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
Categorizing and Understanding Facilities and Long-term (Capital) Investments (with Jinhai Yu)
The school districts throughout Connecticut were allocated significant ARP-ESSER funds to spend on longer-term (capital) investments, including HVAC upgrades, purchasing of new technology, etc. This project is tasked with understanding the ways in which districts spent the allocations on long-term facilities and other physical investments and the impacts on student outcomes. This study will use a mixed methods approach. The quantitative analysis includes coding capital investments under ARP-ESSER plans, descriptive data analysis of the ARPESSER capital investments, and analysis of the impact of the ARP-ESSER capital investments on student academic and behavioral outcomes. In addition to analysis of the quantitative data, the research team will conduct interviews with key district decision-makers in a subsample of districts to understand how these ARP-ESSER funds were allocated, what they perceive to be the impact of the funding on student outcomes, and the role of COVID-19 and other factors in shaping spending priorities. This project will result in a policy report for the Connecticut COVID-19 Education Research Collaborative as well as at least one academic publication.
Current Funding: the Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration