Panel:
College Enrollment, Internships and Success
(Education)
Thursday, November 2, 2017: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Soldier Field (Hyatt Regency Chicago)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Panel Organizers: Ted Joyce, Baruch College, City University of New York
Panel Chairs: Ted Joyce, Baruch College, City University of New York
Discussants: Kevin Stange, University of Michigan and Dave Marcotte, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The papers in this panel analyze ways to increase college enrollment, the quality of colleges attended, the success in college classes and the determinants of college internships. The strength of the panel is the strong research design of each study. Two papers involve randomized field experiments. One uses nudges to improve information about the availability of loans for community college students. The other uses nudges to improve performance in undergraduate economics classes by increasing monitoring of effort and motivation for students in hybrid and purely online classes. They also test whether nudges can substitute for face-to-face time. The third paper uses a regression discontinuity to assess whether the quality of a college attended by an older sibling can increase access to higher quality enrollment among younger siblings. The fourth study is one of the first to characterize the demand for college interns. The authors then conduct an audit study to evaluate the factors that induce employers to respond to an intern’s application. Each study has significant policy implications that can improve college enrollment and graduation.
