Exploring the Mechanisms and Direct Impact of College Access Advising: The Case of AdviseTN

• In Event: Institutional Resources for Navigating Complexity: Designing Policies to Increase College Access and Completion

Abstract

College advisors embedded in high schools improve the quality of colleges where students apply, and rates of postsecondary enrollment. Evidence from scaled advising programs that target lower-performing high schools show improvements in college-going among disadvantaged students, but little is known about the mechanisms through which these programs work. Early evidence from the AdviseTN program showed strong, positive effects on college-going, with no discernable movement towards different enrollment sectors (technical certification programs, 2-years, and 4-years). Given that AdviseTN has pushed as many as 1,400 additional students to college that otherwise might not have attended, how has the program successfully helped students navigate the complex process of applying to and paying for college? Here, we update analyses that leverage the statewide adoption of AdviseTN and directly explore the effects on treated students by the intensity of advising and explore outcomes prior to college enrollment that facilitate the large increases in enrollment.

AdviseTN is a state-funded college-access program that supports full-time college advisors in a portion of high schools that fall below the state average for college-going. Our sample includes graduates from 34 diverse schools that received a college advisor (treatment) and 30 similar schools that were eligible for the program but did not receive (control). AdviseTN advisors began with the high school class of 2017, meeting one-on-one and with small groups of students during their senior year for general postsecondary advising. Advisors help students with college selection and applications, filing the FAFSA and doing other financial literacy building, and connecting to and applying for other programs like the Tennessee Promise and HOPE.

Our data are from the Tennessee P20 Longitudinal Connect data system, which covers all in-state public high school and postsecondary enrollment. We supplement these with individual student-advisor records from the AdviseTN CRM program, allowing us to observe extensive and intensive student engagement with the program, as well as contact type.

Leveraging a heterogeneity robust difference-in-differences estimator that exploits both within-high-school and across-cohort variation in outcomes, we find advisors improve immediate college-going by about 4 percentage points (an increase of around 6%), and that effects are stronger at rural high schools (+5.5pp) and among women (+4.4pp) and Hispanic students (+6.3pp). These increases are buttressed by large increases in FAFSA enrollment (+6.7pp) and applications to the statewide Tennessee Promise (+3.8pp). In ongoing analyses, we show that receipt of treatment, that is, direct contact with advisors, drives these results. In the full analysis, we highlight differences between the intent-to-treat and the effect on the treated and show how contact and intensity both drive outcomes.

In contrast to prior studies of statewide advising programs, we find that having dedicated college advisors in high schools meaningfully improves college-going rates. These effects are reinforced by the support that advisors provide to students in navigating the complex paperwork of college and financial aid applications. This study helps contextualize other results on AdviseTN and other advising programs and improves our understanding of college advising and its potential to improve student outcomes.

Authors

• Isabel McMullen, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Presenting Author

• Taylor K. Odle, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Co-Author