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The Bottom Line on College Advising: Large Increases in Degree Attainment

We combine a large multi-site randomized control trial with administrative and survey data to demonstrate that intensive advising during high school and college leads to large increases in bachelor's degree attainment. Novel causal forest methods suggest that these increases are driven primarily by improvements in the quality of initial enrollment. Program effects are consistent across sites, cohorts, advisors, and student characteristics, suggesting the model is scalable. While current and proposed investments in postsecondary education focus on cutting costs, our result suggest that investment in advising is likely to be a more efficient route to promote bachelor's degree attainment.

Keywords
College, intensive advising, degree attainment, counseling, mobility
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/xdsa-5e22

EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:

Barr, Andrew C., and Benjamin L. Castleman. (). The Bottom Line on College Advising: Large Increases in Degree Attainment. (EdWorkingPaper: 21-481). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/xdsa-5e22

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