turn generated modest gains in initial enrollment, with a marked treatment-induced shift from two-to four-year campuses, an effect that increases in the second post-program year.
This paper reports updated findings from a randomized evaluation of a generous, privatelyfunded scholarship program for Nebraska public college students. Scholarship offers boosted college enrollment and persistence. Four years after award receipt, randomly-selected scholarship winners were 13 percentage points more likely to be enrolled in college. Enrollment effects were larger for groups with historically low college attendance, including nonwhite students, firstgeneration college-goers, and students with low high school GPAs. Scholarships shifted many students from two-to four-year colleges, reducing associate's degree completion in the process. Despite their substantial gains in four-year college enrollment, award winners from the first study cohort were slightly less likely to graduate on time than control applicants, suggesting that scholarships delay degree completion for some students. Projected graduation rates using the last cohort of pre-experimental scholarship applicants indicate that scholarships are likely to increase bachelor's degree completion within five years.
and seminar participants at NBER Summer Institute, IIES, Harvard, MIT and Yale for their many helpful comments and suggestions. We acknowledge financial support from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and the MIT SEII seed fund. The views expressed here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions or funders involved with this work, nor those of the National Bureau of Economic Research. This RCT was registered with the American Economic Association under trial number AEARCTR-0000125. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
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