Longer-Term Effects of the Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship: College Enrollment, Persistence, and Completion

• In Event: 60.058 - Promise Scholarship Programs in High-Poverty Communities: What Is the Impact of Promise Scholarship Programs on College Access in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin?

Abstract

Objective

We examine the effects of the Kalamazoo Promise, one of the earliest and most generous place-based college scholarship programs, on college enrollment, persistence, and completion.

Perspective

This is an empirical study of whether dramatic reductions in the cost of higher education lead to a significant increase in post-secondary attainment, a relationship that would be expected not only by economists but indeed by most everyone else but about which little is known.

Methods

We employ two approaches for identification. First, because the value of the scholarship varies based on past enrollment decisions, which are plausibly exogenous because of the surprise announcement of the program, we use an inverse-probability-weighted differences-in-differences approach that compares (similar) eligible and non-eligible students before and after the program. Second, we use propensity scores to match students from the Kalamazoo school district with similar students from neighboring school districts for whom we create pseudo-eligibility under the Promise rules.

Data sources

Our data sources include student-specific college enrollment information obtained through the National Student Clearinghouse, as well as administrative data from Kalamazoo Public Schools and neighboring school districts. While we explore standard heterogeneous treatments by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, our administrative data allow us to further look at outcomes by past attendance, high school grades, and standardized test scores. In so doing, we offer a complete look into how the Kalamazoo Promise affected both the distribution of high school students going to (and persisting in) college as well as the conditional and unconditional distributions of colleges attended.

Results

Preliminary results show an average increase in enrollment within six months of high school graduation of 10 to 12 percentage points from a base of 65 percent, with much of the growth concentrated at four-year public institutions. We discuss the implications of our results for other place-based scholarship programs seeking to promote educational opportunity and alleviate social inequality.

Significance

The place-based scholarship movement is one strategy for lowering the costs of higher education in order to increase college access and attainment; a solid empirical foundation for this relationship will be of critical value to policymakers and stakeholders in communities considering the creation of their own Promise scholarship programs.

Authors

• Timothy Bartik, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

• Brad Hershbein, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

• Marta Lachowska, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research