Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Recent evidence has shown that high-achieving low-income students do not apply to colleges in the same manner as their high-income peers. They are less likely to apply to and attend selective colleges compared to their more affluent peers. This is despite the fact that low-income students would often pay less net of financial aid to attend selective institutions compared to less selective schools. We find evidence of this college-going pattern among a recent cohort of Michigan public high school students—more than half of low-income, high-achieving students attended non-competitive colleges, while only about a third of higher-income high-achieving students did so.

To address this gap, we implemented a randomized controlled trial to test whether an information intervention could increase the number of low-income, high-achieving students that apply to a highly selective, public institution in the state of Michigan. The intervention consisted of an information packet that was mailed to students, a letter sent to the parents of each student, and a letter sent to the principal of each school that was selected for the treatment. The packet included simplified information on financial aid eligibility, promising each student a four-year full tuition scholarship if admitted to the university. All information packets were sent to students in early September of their senior year of high school, two months before the early action deadline for admission and five months before the regular decision deadline. The intervention was randomized at the school level. We then compared application and admission rates of students in the treated schools to those in the control schools. Preliminary results reveal substantial increases in application rates among students who received the information packet compared to similar students who were not sent information packets.