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Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? A Benefit/Cost Analysis of the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick J. Wolf

    (Department of Education Reform, University of Arkansas)

  • Michael McShane

    (Research Fellow in Education Policy, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC)

Abstract

School voucher programs have become a prominent aspect of the education policy landscape in the United States. The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is the only federally funded voucher program in the United States. Since 2004 it has offered publicly funded private school vouchers to nearly four thousand students to attend any of seventy-three different private schools in Washington, DC. An official experimental evaluation of the program, sponsored by the federal government's Institute of Education Sciences, found that the students who were awarded Opportunity Scholarships graduated from high school at a rate 12 percentage points higher than the students in the randomized control group. This article estimates the benefit/cost ratio of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, primarily by considering the increased graduation rate that it induced and the estimated positive economic returns to increased educational attainment. We find a benefit to cost ratio of 2.62, or $2.62 in benefits for every dollar spent on the program. © 2013 Association for Education Finance and Policy

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick J. Wolf & Michael McShane, 2013. "Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? A Benefit/Cost Analysis of the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(1), pages 74-99, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:8:y:2013:i:1:p:74-99
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Wei Li & Nianbo Dong & Rebecca A. Maynard, 2020. "Power Analysis for Two-Level Multisite Randomized Cost-Effectiveness Trials," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 45(6), pages 690-718, December.
    2. Aidan R. Vining & David L. Weimer, 2019. "The Value of High School Graduation in the United States: Per-Person Shadow Price Estimates for Use in Cost–Benefit Analysis," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-15, October.
    3. Chingos, Matthew M. & Peterson, Paul E., 2015. "Experimentally estimated impacts of school vouchers on college enrollment and degree attainment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 1-12.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    voucher programs; scholarship programs; DC Opportunity Scholarship Program; District of Columbia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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