Browsing by Author "Goodman, Joshua"

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    The Effect of State Policy on College Choice and Match
    Goodman, Joshua; Hurwitz, Michael; Smith, Jonathan (American Enterprise Institute, 2015-08-04)
    States play a critical role in the U.S. higher education system, both by providing funding to colleges and students and by regulating some aspects of the college admissions process.1 This paper summarizes existing research on a variety of state higher education policies, with a focus on the effect of such policies on students’ college enrollment choices, the quality of the colleges they attend, and their degree completion rates. The authors pay particular attention to the issue of the match between a student’s academic skills and chosen college, in part because state policies likely most affect under-served, under-resourced, and under-informed students who, as recent research shows, are more likely to undermatch than their more advantaged counterparts. The authors emphasize the importance of evaluating such policies not only on the basis of how they affect enrollment rates but also by the extent to which they connect students to colleges that give them the greatest chance completing their degrees.
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    O Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers in College Enrollment
    Goodman, Joshua; Hurwitz, Michael; Mulhern, Christine; Smith, Jonathan (Annenberg Institute at Brown University, 2019-12-01)
    The authors study within-family spillovers in college enrollment to show college-going behavior is transmissible between peers. Because siblings’ test scores are weakly correlated, they exploit college-specific admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings’ college options. Older siblings’ admissibility substantially increases their own four-year college enrollment rate and quality of college attended. Their improved college choices in turn raise younger siblings’ college enrollment rate and quality of college chosen, particularly for families with low predicted probabilities of college enrollment. Some younger siblings follow their older sibling to the same campus but many upgrade by choosing other colleges. The observed spillovers are not well-explained by price, income, proximity or legacy effects, but are most consistent with older siblings transmitting otherwise unavailable information about the college experience and its potential returns. The importance of such personally salient information may partly explain persistent differences in college-going rates by income, geography and other characteristics that define a community.