American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Increasing Degree Attainment among Low-Income Students: The Role of Intensive Advising and College Quality
American Economic Review
(pp. 4075–4103)
Abstract
A college degree offers a pathway to economic mobility for low-income students. Using a multisite randomized controlled trial combined with administrative and survey data, we demonstrate that intensive advising during high school and college significantly increases bachelor's degree attainment among lower-income students. We leverage unique data on preadvising college preferences and causal forest methods to show that these gains are primarily driven by improvements in initial enrollment quality. Our results suggest that strategies targeting college choice may be a more effective and efficient means of increasing degree attainment than those focused solely on affordability.Citation
Barr, Andrew, and Benjamin Castleman. 2025. "Increasing Degree Attainment among Low-Income Students: The Role of Intensive Advising and College Quality." American Economic Review 115 (11): 4075–4103. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20240669Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- G51 Household Finance: Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I22 Educational Finance; Financial Aid
- I23 Higher Education; Research Institutions