Do Students Respond to Sticker-Price Reductions?: Evidence from the North Carolina Promise

The North Carolina Promise is a state-level policy that reduced the cost of tuition for all students who attended one of three campuses in the University of North Carolina System starting in fall of 2018. We use IPEDS data and a synthetic control approach to examine how this tuition reduction affected enrollment and persistence at these campuses. We find that NC Promise did not increase enrollment among first-year students. However, it attracted more transfer students and increased enrollment by Hispanic students at one of the institutions. Retention rates at the three universities remained constant. We discuss implications for similar policies aimed at changing the “sticker price” at public, four-year colleges.