Volume 37, Number 3 (Summer) 2002
DesJardins, Stephen L., Dennis A. Ahlburg, and Brian P. McCall. 2002. "Simulating the Longitudinal Effects of Changes in Financial Aid on Student Departure from College." Journal of Human Resources 37(3):653-679.
We use the estimates from a hazard model of college student departure to simulate how changes in financial-aid packaging affect students' departure decisions over time. We find that changing loans to scholarships, as Princeton has recently done, has a large impact on retention and that frontloading aid has a more modest impact. Our results also suggest that financial aid represents more to the student than just the dollar value of the aid offered. Increased knowledge about the temporal effects of different types of financial aid will help policy makers make more informed choices about the structure of financial aid packages.
Stephen L. DesJardins, Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, The University of Iowa. Dennis A. Ahlburg and Brian P. McCall, Industrial Relations Center, University of Minnesota. The authors are grateful for the generous resource grant provided by the Minnesota Supercomputer Institute and for helpful comments on an earlier draft provided by Mike McPherson and from two anonymous referees. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning November 2002 through October 2005 from Stephen L. DesJardins, Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, The University of Iowa, N49I Lindquist Center, Iowa City, IA 52242.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X