Work

Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Childhood Investments on Postsecondary Attainment and Degree Completion

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of early childhood investments on college enrollment and degree completion. We used the random assignment in Project STAR (the Tennessee Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio experiment) to estimate the effect of smaller classes in primary school on college entry, college choice, and degree completion. We improve on existing work in this area with unusually detailed data on college enrollment spells and the previously unexplored outcome of college degree completion. We found that assignment to a small class increases students’ probability of attending college by 2.7 percentage points, with effects more than twice as large among black students. Among students enrolled in the poorest third of schools, the effect is 7.3 percentage points. Smaller classes increased the likelihood of earning a college degree by 1.6 percentage points and shifted students toward high‐earning fields such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), business, and economics. We found that test‐score effects at the time of the experiment were an excellent predictor of long‐term improvements in postsecondary outcomes.

Source: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management

DOI: 10.1002/pam.21715

Authors: Susan Dynarski, Joshua Hyman, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

Institutions: National Bureau of Economic Research, University of Michigan

Language: English

Topic: School Choice and Performance

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Quality education, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: Yale University, Vanderbilt University, Princeton University, Tennessee Department of Education