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Full-Text Articles in Public Economics
Experimental Evidence On The Effect Of Childhood Investments On Postsecondary Attainment And Degree Completion, Susan Dynarski, Joshua Hyman, Diane Schanzenbach
Experimental Evidence On The Effect Of Childhood Investments On Postsecondary Attainment And Degree Completion, Susan Dynarski, Joshua Hyman, Diane Schanzenbach
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach
This paper examines the effect of early childhood investments on college enrollment and degree completion. We use the random assignment in the Project STAR experiment to estimate the effect of smaller classes in primary school on college entry, college choice, and degree completion. We improve on existing work in this area with unusually detailed data on college enrollment spells and the previously unexplored outcome of college degree completion. We find that assignment to a small class increases the probability of attending college by 2.7 percentage points, with effects more than twice as large among blacks. Among those with the lowest …
The Effect Of Attending A Small Class In The Early Grades On College-Test Taking And Middle School Test Results: Evidence From Project Star, Alan Krueger, Diane Schanzenbach
The Effect Of Attending A Small Class In The Early Grades On College-Test Taking And Middle School Test Results: Evidence From Project Star, Alan Krueger, Diane Schanzenbach
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach
This paper provides a long-term follow-up analysis of students who participated in the Tennessee STAR experiment. In this experiment, students and their teachers were randomly assigned to small, regular-size, or regular-size classes with a teacher aide in the first four years of school. We analyse the effect of past attendance in small classes on student test scores and whether they took the ACT or SAT college entrance exam. Attending a small class in the early grades is associated with an increased likelihood of taking a college-entrance exam, especially among minority students, and somewhat higher test scores.