The Long Run Impacts of Merit Aid: Evidence from California's Cal Grant / Eric Bettinger, Oded Gurantz, Laura Kawano, Bruce Sacerdote.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bettinger, Eric.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Gurantz, Oded.

Kawano, Laura.

Sacerdote, Bruce.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22347.

NBER working paper series no. w22347

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Long Run Impacts of Merit Aid

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

We examine the long-term impacts of California's state-based financial aid by tracking students' educational and labor force outcomes for up to 14 years after high school graduation. We identify program impacts by exploiting variation in eligibility rules using GPA and family income cutoffs that are ex ante unknown to applicants. Aid eligibility increases undergraduate and graduate degree completion, and for some subgroups, raises longer-run annual earnings and the likelihood that young adults reside in California. Aid eligibility has no impact on take-up of the Pell or federal tax credits for higher education. These findings suggest that the net cost of financial aid programs may frequently be overstated, though our results are too imprecise to provide exact cost-benefit estimates.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2016.