IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v11y2019i1p317-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Out-of-State Tuition Distortion

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Knight
  • Nathan Schiff

Abstract

Public universities typically charge much higher tuition to nonresidents. We first investigate the welfare implications of this tuition gap in a simple model. While the social planner does not distinguish between residents and nonresidents, state governments set higher tuition for nonresidents. The welfare gains from reducing the tuition gap can be characterized by a sufficient statistic relating out-of-state enrollment to the tuition gap. We estimate this sufficient statistic via a border discontinuity design using data on the geographic distribution of students by institution.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Knight & Nathan Schiff, 2019. "The Out-of-State Tuition Distortion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 317-350, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:11:y:2019:i:1:p:317-50
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20170499
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20170499
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=8900
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=-_a1Cv4ExgU9y3RvCsErKW_Y3g_q9FOi
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=NUurzr1B9dXJlHLTjbD0WcKFl5GdBTTO
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas J. Kane, 2007. "Evaluating the Impact of the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    2. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    3. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 2003. "Centralized versus decentralized provision of local public goods: a political economy approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2611-2637, December.
    4. Sandra E. Black, 1999. "Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation of Elementary Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(2), pages 577-599.
    5. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Moral Hazard versus Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(2), pages 173-234, April.
    6. Dwenger, Nadja & Storck, Johanna & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2012. "Do tuition fees affect the mobility of university applicants? Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 155-167.
    7. Groen, Jeffrey A. & White, Michelle J., 2004. "In-state versus out-of-state students: the divergence of interest between public universities and state governments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1793-1814, August.
    8. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 13967, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Christopher N. Avery & Mark E. Glickman & Caroline M. Hoxby & Andrew Metrick, 2013. "A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 128(1), pages 425-467.
    10. Sarah R. Cohodes & Joshua S. Goodman, 2014. "Merit Aid, College Quality, and College Completion: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 251-285, October.
    11. Katharine G. Abraham & Melissa A. Clark, 2006. "Financial Aid and Students’ College Decisions: Evidence from the District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant Program," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(3).
    12. Christopher Avery & Caroline Minter Hoxby, 2004. "Do and Should Financial Aid Packages Affect Students' College Choices?," NBER Chapters, in: College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go, and How to Pay For It, pages 239-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Hoxby, Caroline M. & Bulman, George B., 2016. "The effects of the tax deduction for postsecondary tuition: Implications for structuring tax-based aid," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 23-60.
    14. Robert P. Inman & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 1997. "Rethinking Federalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 43-64, Fall.
    15. John Kennan, 2015. "Spatial Variation in Higher Education Financing and the Supply of College Graduates," NBER Working Papers 21065, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Lydia Mechtenberg & Roland Strausz, 2008. "The Bologna process: how student mobility affects multi-cultural skills and educational quality," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(2), pages 109-130, April.
    17. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Moral Hazard versus Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(2), pages 173-234, April.
    18. Brian Knight, 2013. "State Gun Policy and Cross-State Externalities: Evidence from Crime Gun Tracing," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 200-229, November.
    19. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Sinan Sarpça & Holger Sieg, 2013. "The U.S. Market for Higher Education: A General Equilibrium Analysis of State and Private Colleges and Public Funding Policies," NBER Working Papers 19298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Noorbakhsh, Abbas & Culp, David, 2002. "The demand for higher education: Pennsylvania's nonresident tuition experience," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 277-286, June.
    21. Bound, John & Groen, Jeffrey & Kezdi, G.Gabor & Turner, Sarah, 2004. "Trade in university training: cross-state variation in the production and stock of college-educated labor," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 143-173.
    22. Susan M. Dynarski, 2003. "Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 279-288, March.
    23. Amy Finkelstein & Nathaniel Hendren & Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2019. "The Value of Medicaid: Interpreting Results from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2836-2874.
    24. Emmanuel Saez, 2001. "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 205-229.
    25. Wallace E. Oates, 1999. "An Essay on Fiscal Federalism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(3), pages 1120-1149, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bo Zhao, 2019. "Consequences of state disinvestment in public higher education: lessons for the New England states," New England Public Policy Center Research Report 19-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    2. Bo Zhao, 2018. "Disinvesting in the future?: a comprehensive examination of the effects of state appropriations for public higher education," Working Papers 18-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, revised 01 Jun 2018.
    3. Brian G. Knight & Nathan M. Schiff, 2019. "Reducing Frictions in College Admissions: Evidence from the Common Application," NBER Working Papers 26151, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:11:y:2019:i:1:p:317-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael P. Albert). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.