Abraham, Katharine G., and Melissa A. Clark. 2006. “Financial Aid and Students’ College Decisions: Evidence from the District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant Program.” Journal of Human Resources 41(3): 578–610.
The District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG), instituted in 1999, allows D.C. residents to attend public colleges and universities throughout the country at considerably lower in-state tuition rates. We use the sharp decline in the price of public colleges and universities faced by D.C. residents to estimate the effects of price on college application and enrollment decisions. We find that DCTAG increased the likelihood that students applied to eligible institutions and markedly increased college enrollment rates among recent high school graduates. Enrollments increased primarily at less selective colleges and universities, with no decrease at more selective schools.
Katharine Abraham is Professor of Survey Methodology and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. Melissa Clark is an Economist at Mathematica Policy Research. The authors thank Orley Ashenfelter, Alan Krueger, David Linsenmeier, Cecilia Rouse, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the University of Notre Dame, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the labor lunch at Princeton University for helpful comments and suggestions. Ellen Sawtell of The College Board and Diane Dickerson-Hayes of the University of the District of Columbia provided assistance with data. The SAT data used in this paper are proprietary and were obtained from the College Board under a license with Princeton University. Researchers wishing to obtain these data may apply for a license with the College Board, under the guidelines provided on their website: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/research/RDGuideforReleaseData.pdf. The authors are willing to provide guidance on using these data to anyone who may choose to pursue them. The other data used in this article can be obtained beginning January 2007 through December 2010 from Melissa Clark at Mathematica Policy Research, P.O. Box 2393, Princeton, NJ 08543 or mclark@mathematica-mpr.com.