Here's the latest working paper from economists, Caroline Hoxby (Stanford), and Sarah Turner (University of Virginia): "What High-Achieving Low-Income Students Know About College" (Jan 2015). This research builds on previous research conducted by Hoxby and Turner (and Hoxby and Avery) and examines how information about the net price of college (cost of attendance minus estimated financial aid – ie not sticker price, but what that individual student will actually pay), financial aid, and fee waivers has a significant influence on where very talented low-income students apply and enroll.
The researchers divided the students in the study – students who tested in the top 10% of SAT or ACT test takers and whose family income fell in the bottom third of income distribution for families with a high school senior – into two groups: One group received information about net price, graduation rates, institutional resources and the college environment (an intervention called "Expanding College Opportunities" or "ECO-C"); the other group (the "control") didn't receive any of this additional information.
The results? Students who received the intervention, relative to the peers in the "control" group, submitted 48% more applications and were 56% more likely to attend a more rigorous and selective college. According to Hoxby and Turner:
Does this matter? This research shows that it does – and not just as it influences where students send applications; it affects where students are admitted and enroll, and the colleges where they are enrolling are more academically rigorous, have higher graduation rates, and greater institutional resources.
The researchers divided the students in the study – students who tested in the top 10% of SAT or ACT test takers and whose family income fell in the bottom third of income distribution for families with a high school senior – into two groups: One group received information about net price, graduation rates, institutional resources and the college environment (an intervention called "Expanding College Opportunities" or "ECO-C"); the other group (the "control") didn't receive any of this additional information.
The results? Students who received the intervention, relative to the peers in the "control" group, submitted 48% more applications and were 56% more likely to attend a more rigorous and selective college. According to Hoxby and Turner:
"They applied to colleges with 17 percent higher graduation rates and 55 percent higher instructional spending. Treated students were admitted to 31 percent more colleges and were 78 percent more likely to be admitted by a peer college. They were admitted at colleges with 24 percent higher graduation rates and 34 percent higher instructional spending. Treated students enrolled in colleges that were 46 percent more likely to be peer institutions, whose graduation rates were 15 percent higher, and whose instructional spending was 22 percent higher."Wow. The Joyce Ivy Foundation has frequently cited and championed the work of Hoxby and Turner, and Hoxby and Avery, because it supports what we have understood about low-income students in the Midwest, and supports the work we do to provide lower- and middle-income students with opportunities to experience highly selective college campuses and understand the financial aid available to them.
Does this matter? This research shows that it does – and not just as it influences where students send applications; it affects where students are admitted and enroll, and the colleges where they are enrolling are more academically rigorous, have higher graduation rates, and greater institutional resources.
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