Examining the Effects of Tuition Controls on Student Enrollment

A growing number of states are placing restrictions on whether public universities can increase tuition, and this trend is likely to continue in the future. Yet no research has examined whether tuition caps or freezes have induced more students—particularly from historically underrepresented groups—to enroll in public higher education. In this paper, we constructed an institution-level dataset of tuition controls mandated by state legislatures or higher education agencies to answer these important questions. We found that tuition freezes were associated with increased enrollment of both in-state and out-of-state students, but primarily at less-selective universities that were willing to expand capacity. There is also some evidence that Hispanic enrollment may have increased following tuition freezes.