Abstract
Under-participation in selective universities lowers social mobility in England, the United States, and elsewhere. English universities have standardized tuition costs, and strongly heterogeneous graduate earnings. Attending a selective university is therefore strongly incentivized, yet under-participation is extensive. The British Government sent 11,104 “nudge” letters to school students whose prior attainment made them competitive for entry into selective universities, urging them to consider that option. We evaluate this RCT and find it effective at raising the number of students who apply to, and accept offers from, selective universities. We find the cost to be low relative to outcomes.
Highlights
In England, the university you attend matters for your future finances
Data are provided in such a way that allow us to identify for each student, which school they attended, and whether they applied to, were accepted by, and accepted an offer from, any university, or a selective institution
It would be possible to create our own definition of what constitutes a selective university, using, for example, data on the number of applications per place, or the average grade of candidates admitted, or some combination thereof
Summary
In England, the university you attend matters for your future finances. Alumni of universities ranked highly by five year salary typically earn over twice as much as their compatriots who attended lower ranked universities, taking subject studied into account. Social and familial norms mean that students considering universities may well minimize the extent to which their application strategies differ from those of their peers, even when those patterns are sub-optimal for them (Fryer and Torelli (2010)) Related to this is the ‘availability heuristic’, which states that individuals gauge the likelihood of an event by how readily they can recall examples of it. Bettinger et al (2012) found that coupling information provision with personalized assistance in completing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) increased the proportion of low-income high-school seniors attending and completing two years of college from 28% to 36%. Even though these students enrolled in more competitive courses, their freshman grades were as good as students in the control group, suggesting that their academic performance was not impaired
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