@EdWorkingPaper{ai20-306,
title = "The Impact of Merit Aid on College Choice and Degree Attainment: Reexamining Florida’s Bright Futures Program",
author = "Oded Gurantz, Taylor Odle",
institution = "Annenberg Institute at Brown University",
number = "306",
year = "2020",
month = "October",
URL = "http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-306",
abstract = {We replicate and extend prior work on Florida’s Bright Futures merit aid scholarship to consider its effect on college enrollment and degree completion. We estimate causal impacts using a regression discontinuity design to exploit SAT thresholds that strongly determine eligibility. We find no positive impacts on attendance or attainment, and instrumental variable results generally reject estimates as small as 1-2 percentage points. Across subgroups, we do find that eligibility slightly reduces six-year associate degree attainment for lower-SES students and may induce small enrollment shifts among Hispanic and White students. Our findings of these minimal-at-best impacts contrast those of prior works, attributable in part to methodological improvements and more robust data, and further underscore the importance of study replication. (JEL: H75, I21, I22, I23, I28)},
}