The Financial and Academic Impacts of Achieve Atlanta's Place-Based Scholarship

• In Event: Research Practice Partnerships . . . It Takes a Village: Enhancing the Benefits of an RPP Through Multiple Research Methods and Multiple Voices

Abstract

In this study, we aim to not only learn about the impacts of the Achieve Atlanta (AATL) scholarship on financial and academic circumstances in college. Not only does this explore new outcomes relative to earlier evaluative work, but it also helps understand the mechanisms driving college persistence from our first study on AATL’s impact. We use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to examine whether scholarship receipt recipients changes high school graduates’ portfolio of student loans, along with course-taking and performance at the first term in the first college enrolled. To validate our estimates, we explore alternative explanations and systematically rule out common sources of bias from OLS, such as scholarship take-up and college attended. Moreover, we replicate our main results using other methods, including such as propensity score matching and regression discontinuity.

Author

• Za Eng Mawi, Georgia State University