The College Promise in Communities: Do Place-based Scholarships Affect Residential Mobility Patterns?

Abstract

Place-based scholarships within the College Promise movement reduce the cost of college for students in particular places and often include incentives for families to live in places for a longer period of time to capture full program benefits. This financial incentive may change the residential mobility decisions of people living in and around Promise-targeted locations, potentially affecting a community’s composition and who can benefit from the scholarship. We use difference-in-differences with census tract-level data from the American Community Survey to assess whether the New Haven Promise, Say Yes Buffalo, or La Crosse Promise affect residential mobility based on household income, race/ethnicity, and age in their respective cities. We find evidence of overall in-migration due to program introduction, driven by the Say Yes Buffalo program, but corresponding decreases in those staying in treated Buffalo and La Crosse census tracts. Further, we find that White, high income residents are more likely to stay in New Haven to take advantage of the program. We also find a potential displacement effect in La Crosse for families with children, suggesting that originally targeted residents moved out the Promise-targeted areas, but that new families with children moved in as a result of the program. Overall, our short-term impacts suggest that since moving is expensive, higher income families are more likely to benefit from these programs than their lower income counterparts by having more control of whether, when, and where to move. Implications for communities and program (re)design are discussed.