Why Do College-Going Interventions Work?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Carrell, Scott; Sacerdote, Bruce
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Davis; National Bureau of Economic Research; Dartmouth College
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20150530
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 124-151
• 关键词: randomized-trial; summer melt; achievement; incentives; attainment; enrollment; program

摘要

We present evidence from a series of field experiments in college coaching/mentoring. We find large impacts on college attendance and persistence, but only in the treatments where we use an intensive boots-on-the-ground approach to helping students. Our treatments that provide financial incentives or information alone do not appear to be effective. For women, assignment to our mentoring treatment yields a 15 percentage point increase in the - college-going rate while treatment on the treated estimates are 30 percentage points (against a control complier mean rate of 43 percent). We find much smaller treatment effects for men, and the difference in treatment effects across genders is partially explained by the differential in - self-reported labor market opportunities. We do not find evidence that the treatment effect derives from simple behavioral mistakes, student disorganization, or a lack of easily obtained information. Instead our mentoring program appears to substitute for the potentially expensive and often missing ingredient of skilled parental or teacher time and encouragement.