Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Recent research on statewide private school choice programs in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio has found those programs have a negative effect on student test scores, at least in the early years of student participation. But little research exists on whether participating in a private school choice program affects long-term outcomes, such as college enrollment and degree attainment. This study examines the effect of a private school choice programs, the Florida Tax Credit scholarship (FTC), on college enrollment and graduation.

The FTC scholarship is the largest statewide private choice program in the United States. We estimate the effects of the FTC on the rates at which students enroll in and graduate from college. This paper expands on earlier work by Chingos and Kuehn (2017), which looks at the impact of FTC participation on enrollment in and graduation from public colleges in Florida. We compare the outcomes of more than 16,000 low-income students who entered the program between 2004 and 2010 with outcomes of students with similar characteristics and test scores who never participated in the FTC program. We find that participating in FTC has substantial positive impacts on the likelihood that students enroll college.

We find that FTC participants are more likely than similar nonparticipants to enroll in both two-year and four-year colleges, including both public and private nonprofit four-year colleges. Students who entered FTC in elementary or middle school were 6 percentage points more likely to enroll in college, a 12 percent increase. Students who entered the program in high school were 10 percentage points more likely to enroll, a 19 percent increase. Participating in FTC also increases the likelihood that students earn a bachelor’s degree, with average increases of 1 to 2 percentage points (10 to 20 percent). The size of both effects tends to increase with the number of years of FTC participation. These results are consistent with the earlier findings in Chingos and Kuehn (2017), although in some cases they are larger because of positive estimated impacts of FTC participation in enrollment in private nonprofit and out-of-state colleges.

The FTC helps get students into college, but too many still fail to earn degrees. A fuller understanding of what this means for these students will require continuing to track their outcomes, including bachelor’s degree attainment rates and incomes. But this research shows that policymakers considering the design, expansion, or reform of private school choice programs should carefully consider not just their likely impact on short-term metrics such as test scores, but also how they might shape long-term outcomes, including college enrollment and graduation.