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Changes in financial aid policies raise questions about students being asked to pay too much for college and whether parents' college savings for their children helps reduce the burden on students to pay for college. Using trivariate probit analysis with predicted probabilities, in this exploratory study we find recent changes in the financial aid system place a higher responsibility on African American, Latino/Hispanic, and moderate-income students to pay for college themselves. We also find when parents open a savings account, start a state-sponsored savings plan, or open a college investment fund students are less likely to pay for college with student contributions. Therefore, we suggest in addition to grants and scholarships, policies that encourage accumulation of savings for college among minority and lower income families may help reduce the college cost burden they experience.

This paper presents evidence from a randomized field experiment testing the impact of a three-year matched savings program on educational outcomes 10 years after the start of the experiment. We examine the effect of an Individual Development Account (IDA) program on (1) educational enrollment, (2) degree completion, and (3) increased education level. The IDA program, which ran from 1998 to 2003 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, provided low-income households with financial education and matching funds for qualified savings withdrawals, including a 1:1 match for educational uses. We find a significant impact on education enrollment and positive (but non-significant) impacts on degree completion and increase in level of education. We also examine the interaction between gender and treatment assignment, finding that the IDA had a strong positive effect on increased educational attainment for men but not for women.

This paper quantifies the extent of student-college 'academic undermatch,' which occurs when a student's academic credentials permit them access to a college or university that is more selective than the postsecondary alternative they actually choose. Using a nationally representative dataset, we find that 41 per cent of students undermatch in their postsecondary choice. We also find that academic undermatch affects students with a range of academic credentials, but is more common among those students from low socioeconomic status families, who live in rural areas, and whose parents have no college degree. Finally, we show that between the 1992 and 2004 high school senior cohorts, academic undermatch has decreased by nearly 20 per cent. The decrease is partially due to students being more likely to apply to a matched college.

In reaction to the OECD-wide declining trend in scientific enrollments, the Italian government launched a policy in 2005 to promote the study of science at the university. The policy promoted extra-curricular activities for secondary school students in chemistry, physics, math and materials science. This article evaluates the policy impact on students' choice of the field of study. We use an intention to treat effect and administrative data on enrollment at two Italian universities. The findings indicate that the probability of enrolling in a scientific track increases by three per cent for males. We find no effect for females. Participating in activities in math increases the probability of enrolling in physics and vice versa. The treatment had also a positive impact on enrollments in pharmacy. The results suggest that the policy was successful in correcting the labour market expectations of male students.

While there is wide agreement that leaders matter, little is known regarding the role that human capital plays in determining who becomes one. We exploit unique attributes of the higher education industry to examine if training and academic ability affect the placement of university presidents within the research hierarchy of US institutions. The analysis uses two data sets drawn from the American College President Survey conducted over three decades and a digitized sample of 212 curriculum vitae for presidents at top US universities in 2009, to model the factors that determine who among the pool of university presidents places at Carnegie-classified research institutions. The findings suggest the rise to the presidency of a research institution depends on the investments in research-specific human capital over the entire course of a career consistent with prior evidence that the knowledge of the research enterprise is critical to the success of such institutions.