Can Re-Enrollment Campaigns Help Dropouts Return to College? Evidence from Florida Community Colleges

Abstract

for their detailed feedback. We also thank conference participants at the Association for the Study of Higher Education for their helpful comments and Maryanne Long and Jiayao Wu for outstanding research assistance. The study was approved by the University of Florida Institutional Review Board (IRB201602705). The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. 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 They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

The Impact of No-Loan Program Participation on the Likelihood of Graduate School Enrollment Among Low-Income, First-Generation Students

“…Results from this study indicate that the positive impact of no-loan program participation on the likelihood of enrolling in graduate school is robust to multiple specifications and quasiexperimental approaches; however, these effects appear to be concentrated primarily among underrepresented minority students. The differential effects of no-loan program participation between underrepresented minority and non-minority students are noteworthy, as our findings complement prior work demonstrating that financial aid policies have varying effects on students from underrepresented racial/ethnic subgroups (DesJardins and McCall 2014;Gross, Torres, and Zerquera 2013;Ortagus, Tanner, and McFarlin 2020). Given the underrepresentation of racial minority students in graduate education, this study offers meaningful implications for administrators and policymakers seeking initiatives to induce graduate school enrollment among underrepresented minority students.…”

Finishing the Last Lap: Experimental Evidence on Strategies to Increase Attainment for Students Near College Completion

“…Ours is the first paper of which we are aware to investigate whether interactive, text‐based nudges can improve attainment among students who have made substantial progress towards a degree and who are still in college. Several interventions have attempted to increase reenrollment and success among students with substantial credits who had already withdrawn, with limited efficacy (Adelman, 2013; Ortagus, Tanner, & McFarlin, 2021). Second, our paper shows that the limited efficacy of nudges in postsecondary education is not a function of the level of implementation or the lack of access to text‐based advising, as prior papers have hypothesized (e.g., Bird, Castleman, Denning, et al., 2021a).…”

Unfinished Business? Academic and Labor Market Profile of Adults With Substantial College Credits But No Degree

“…At the state level, several states, including Virginia, have conducted limited outreach campaigns to re-engage students. Ortagus et al (2020) evaluate a re-enrollment campaign conducted by Florida community colleges in which students received text message re-enrollment reminders or the same reminders as well as the offer of a one-course tuition waiver. The reminders and waiver led to a modest (1.5 percentage point) increase in re-enrollment.…”