IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/v21y2021i1p307-334n13.html

The Effects of the State Prepaid Tuition Program on College Attainment

Author

Listed:
  • Shen Ying

    (Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, USA)

Abstract

By locking in today’s tuition rate for future college attendance, the prepaid tuition program (PTP) is designed to encourage parents to invest in their children’s human capital. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the state PTP on college attainment by using data from the 2011–2013 American Community Survey. By exploiting cross-state variation in the timing of the implementation of the state PTP, I found that the program adoption was associated with a 0.7–1.0 percentage point increase in college enrollment rates and a 0.5–0.7 percentage point increase in college completion rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Shen Ying, 2021. "The Effects of the State Prepaid Tuition Program on College Attainment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 307-334, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:21:y:2021:i:1:p:307-334:n:13
    DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2020-0058
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2020-0058
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/bejeap-2020-0058?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas J. Kane, 1995. "Rising Public College Tuition and College Entry: How Well Do Public Subsidies Promote Access to College?," NBER Working Papers 5164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Timothy G. Conley & Christopher R. Taber, 2011. "Inference with "Difference in Differences" with a Small Number of Policy Changes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 113-125, February.
    3. Thomas J. Kane, 2003. "A Quasi-Experimental Estimate of the Impact of Financial Aid on College-Going," NBER Working Papers 9703, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Oreopoulos, Philip, 2007. "Do dropouts drop out too soon? Wealth, health and happiness from compulsory schooling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2213-2229, December.
    5. Hickman, Daniel C., 2009. "The effects of higher education policy on the location decision of individuals: Evidence from Florida's Bright Futures Scholarship Program," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 553-562, September.
    6. Dube, Arindrajit & Zipperer, Ben, 2015. "Pooling Multiple Case Studies Using Synthetic Controls: An Application to Minimum Wage Policies," IZA Discussion Papers 8944, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. David L. Sjoquist & John V. Winters, 2015. "State Merit-Based Financial Aid Programs And College Attainment," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 364-390, June.
    8. Xu, Yiqing, 2017. "Generalized Synthetic Control Method: Causal Inference with Interactive Fixed Effects Models," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 57-76, January.
    9. Delaney, Jennifer A. & Kearney, Tyler D., 2015. "The impact of guaranteed tuition policies on postsecondary tuition levels: A difference-in-difference approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 80-99.
    10. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    11. Christopher Cornwell & David B. Mustard & Deepa J. Sridhar, 2006. "The Enrollment Effects of Merit-Based Financial Aid: Evidence from Georgia's HOPE Program," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(4), pages 761-786, October.
    12. Kane, Thomas J, 1994. "College Entry by Blacks since 1970: The Role of College Costs, Family Background, and the Returns to Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 878-911, October.
    13. Hungerman, Daniel M. & Rinz, Kevin, 2016. "Where does voucher funding go? How large-scale subsidy programs affect private-school revenue, enrollment, and prices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 62-85.
    14. Savoca, Elizabeth, 1990. "Another look at the demand for higher education: Measuring the price sensitivity of the decision to apply to college," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 123-134, June.
    15. Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2002. "Estimating the Effect of Financial Aid Offers on College Enrollment: A Regression-Discontinuity Approach," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1249-1287, November.
    16. Adam M. Lavecchia & Heidi Liu & Philip Oreopoulos, 2014. "Behavioral Economics of Education: Progress and Possibilities," NBER Working Papers 20609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Deming & Susan Dynarski, 2009. "Into College, Out of Poverty? Policies to Increase the Postsecondary Attainment of the Poor," NBER Working Papers 15387, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Christopher Erwin & Melissa Binder, 2020. "Does Broad-Based Merit Aid Improve College Completion? Evidence from New Mexico's Lottery Scholarship," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(1), pages 164-190, Winter.
    3. David Deming & Susan Dynarski, 2010. "College Aid," NBER Chapters, in: Targeting Investments in Children: Fighting Poverty When Resources Are Limited, pages 283-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sjoquist, David L. & Winters, John V., 2014. "Merit aid and post-college retention in the state," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 39-50.
    5. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/527ht1a96e837pq2dubgo2953q is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Nguyen, Hieu, 2020. "Free college? Assessing enrollment responses to the Tennessee Promise program," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    7. Waddell, Glen R. & Singell Jr., Larry D., 2011. "Do no-loan policies change the matriculation patterns of low-income students?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 203-214, April.
    8. Bruce, Donald J. & Carruthers, Celeste K., 2014. "Jackpot? The impact of lottery scholarships on enrollment in Tennessee," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 30-44.
    9. Cowan, Benjamin W. & White, Dustin R., 2015. "The effects of merit-based financial aid on drinking in college," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 137-149.
    10. David L. Sjoquist & John V. Winters, 2015. "State Merit-Based Financial Aid Programs And College Attainment," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 364-390, June.
    11. Vergolini, Loris & Zanini, Nadir, 2015. "Away, but not too far from home. The effects of financial aid on university enrolment decisions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 91-109.
    12. Andrii Melnychuk, 2024. "Synthetic Controls with spillover effects: A comparative study," Papers 2405.01645, arXiv.org.
    13. Jeffrey A. Groen, 2011. "Building Knowledge Stocks Locally," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 25(4), pages 316-329, November.
    14. Tomasz Serwach, 2023. "The European Union and within‐country income inequalities. The case of the new member states," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(7), pages 1890-1939, July.
    15. Huseynov, Samir & Palma, Marco A., "undated". "Does California’s LCFS Reduce CO2 Emissions?," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274200, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Tomasz Serwach, 2022. "The European Union and within-country income inequalities. The case of the New Member States," Working Papers hal-03548416, HAL.
    17. Qiong Zhu & Junghee Choi & Yi Meng, 2021. "The Impact of No-Loan Policies on Student Economic Diversity at Public Colleges and Universities," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 62(6), pages 733-764, September.
    18. Sano, Shinpei, 2019. "The effect of student loans on college enrollment: Evidence from municipality panel data in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    19. Zabinski, Zenon & Black, Bernard S., 2022. "The deterrent effect of tort law: Evidence from medical malpractice reform," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Rafaty, Ryan & Dolphin, Geoffroy & Pretis, Felix, 2025. "Carbon pricing and the elasticity of CO2 emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    21. David Gilchrist & Thomas Emery & Nuno Garoupa & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Synthetic Control Method: A tool for comparative case studies in economic history," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 409-445, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:bpj:bejeap:v:21:y:2021:i:1:p:307-334:n:13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.