TY  - JOUR
AB  - 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)
AU  - Gurantz, Oded
AU  - Odle, Taylor
DA  - October 2020
DO  - 10.26300/515y-rs28
PY  - 2020
ST  - The Impact of Merit Aid on College Choice and Degree Attainment: Reexamining Florida’s Bright Futures Program
T2  - EdWorkingPapers.com
TI  - The Impact of Merit Aid on College Choice and Degree Attainment: Reexamining Florida’s Bright Futures Program
UR  - https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-306
ID  - 281
ER  -