What Shapes Student Trajectories? Evidence on Policies, Institutions, and Incentives

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Understanding what helps students persist in college, complete degrees, and translate postsecondary education into economic opportunity is central to improving mobility and reducing inequality. This panel brings together four papers that provide new causal evidence on how different features of the college environment shape student trajectories, including institutional rules, financial incentives, instructional environments, and holistic support services.

The panel begins by examining how institutional academic rules affect student persistence and completion. The first paper studies how eligibility thresholds for first-semester Calculus I influence persistence and STEM degree attainment. Using regression discontinuity designs across 18 institutions, it shows that small differences in initial math placement can meaningfully alter students’ academic trajectories, particularly in STEM fields.

The second paper turns to financial policy, analyzing a major student loan reform that reduced interest rates and introduced income-contingent repayment options. Using a differences-in-discontinuity design, it finds that the reform did not increase overall college enrollment, but it did shift students toward STEM fields at selective institutions and away from non-STEM programs in vocational settings. These findings show how financial policy can reshape educational investment and field-of-study decisions even when it does not affect whether students enroll.

The third paper focuses on the instructional environment and evaluates whether instructor demographic match affects persistence and graduation. Leveraging quasi-random administrative course assignments and an instrumental variables strategy, it finds no meaningful effects of demographic match on persistence or degree completion, with tightly bounded confidence intervals ruling out even modest impacts.

The final paper examines whether intensive holistic supports can generate sustained improvements in college completion, financial health, and early labor market outcomes for community college students. It studies One Million Degrees, a Chicago-area program that provides financial, academic, social, and professional support, using long-run follow-up from an original randomized controlled trial linked to administrative data on employment, wages, postsecondary attainment, and student debt. Prior results showed that access to the program increased college enrollment, persistence, and associate degree attainment within three years. This study is an eight-year follow up of the program which examines the impact of the holistic support program not only college completion but also labor market outcomes and measures of student financial health post-college.

Taken together, the papers show that college completion and postsecondary success are shaped by multiple, distinct mechanisms. Some policies influence whether students persist; others shape what they study, and others determine whether additional support translates college access into durable economic security. By comparing these mechanisms across institutional contexts, the panel offers new evidence on which interventions meaningfully change student trajectories, and which appear to have more limited effects. The findings have direct implications for higher education policy, student support design, and efforts to promote economic mobility.

Policy Area

• Education

Chair

• Riley Kaitlin Acton, Bowdoin College

Discussants

• Emileigh Harrison, The University of Texas at Austin

• Dora T Gicheva, University of North Carolina Greensboro

Organizer

• Marissa Eckrote-Nordland, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Individual Presentations

• Understanding the Impacts of First Semester Math Placement on Post Secondary Outcomes - Presenting Author: Brianna Nicole Felegi, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

• Repayment Design and College Major Choice: Evidence from a Student Loan Reform - Presenting Author: Eduardo Alfonso Barrueto Silva, University of Texas at Austin

• The Limits of Demographic Match in Retaining Students. Evidence from Administrative Course Assignments - Presenting Author: Marissa Eckrote-Nordland, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

• Unpacking the Long-Term Impact of Holistic Supports for Community College Students - Presenting Author: Kelly Hallberg, University of Chicago