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We conduct a randomised controlled trial in the South West of England to evaluate a policy to encourage students from poorer backgrounds to apply to selective universities. Current university students visited local schools and colleges, providing accurate information on the costs and benefits of university, and giving inspirational talks about making that decision. We find that there is a significant effect on the likelihood of students successfully applying to a selective university, but weaker effects on other outcomes. We find that effects are largest for students attending further education colleges, which typically cater for more disadvantaged students (in our sample, 6.2% of students in schools are eligible for free school meals compared to 7.4% in colleges) and offer a wider range of vocational courses. We suggest avenues for future research in this area.

We conduct a randomised controlled trial in the South West of England to evaluate a policy to encourage students from poorer backgrounds to apply to selective universities. Current university students visited local schools and colleges, providing accurate information on the costs and benefits of university, and giving inspirational talks about making that decision. We find that there is a significant effect on the likelihood of students successfully applying to a selective university, but weaker effects on other outcomes. We find that effects are largest for students attending further education colleges, which typically cater for more disadvantaged students (in our sample, 6.2% of students in schools are eligible for free school meals compared to 7.4% in colleges) and offer a wider range of vocational courses. We suggest avenues for future research in this area.

Many educational interventions encourage parents to engage in their child’s education as if parental time and attention is limitless. Sadly, though, it is not. Successfully encouraging certain parental investments may crowd out other productive behaviors. A randomized field experiment (N = 2,212) assessed the impact of an intervention in which parents of middle and high school students received multiple text messages per week encouraging them to ask their children specific questions tied to their science curriculum. The intervention increased parent–child at-home conversations about science but did not detectably impact science test scores. However, the intervention decreased parent engagement in other, potentially productive, parent behaviors. These findings illustrate that parent engagement interventions are not costless: There are opportunity costs to shifting parental effort.

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