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We estimate the impact of a matched savings account program on high school students’ college enrollment and persistence through a randomized controlled trial carried out in Italy. The tested program (Percorsi) provided low‐income high school students with a 4:1 match rate for savings dedicated to higher education expenditures and required that they attended financial education classes. The program increased rates of enrollment and persistence in university by about nine percentage points. Effects were even larger for vocational school students, who have poorer social backgrounds and lower academic preparation. Incentivized savings programs have potential to reduce social disparities in higher education participation, though the lower saving capacity of poorer households can generate regressivity in program design.

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Percorsi is a matched savings program aimed at helping students from low-income households attend college. Previous experimental re-search has demonstrated the positive effects of the program on college enrollment and persistence. This paper investigates the extent to which these experimental results are attributable to the applied targeting strategy: students were admitted to the study through a targeting mechanism based on household income and on a predictive model of university enrollment probability. Applicants with a very high predicted universi-ty enrollment probability and those who revealed no intention of going to university were excluded from the program. The authors assess the performance of this approach by comparing cost-effectiveness esti-mates against simulated scenarios, showing that both the implemented and a simplified targeting yield a cost-effectiveness gain over a no tar-geting scenario. The study makes the case for an increased use of prior knowledge and collaboration between researchers and program manag-ers to enhance programs' cost-effectiveness.