Research

“Student Loan Debt and Risk Preferences on the Job Market” (Job Market Paper) [Click Here for Latest Version]

This paper examines how student loan debt impacts the way that individuals evaluate trade-offs between risk and expected pay on the job market. I test this relationship directly using a hypothetical choice experiment on recent 4-year college graduates in the U.S. In this experiment, I compare participants’ risk preferences over jobs at baseline with their preferences over jobs after a random, hypothetical debt shock. I find that an increase in student loan debt has an overall null effect on the way individuals make trade-offs between risk and expected pay, but that this masks heterogeneous effects across several participant characteristics. Some participants choose less risky but lower-paying jobs in response to a higher debt level, prioritizing stability to minimize the likelihood of missed monthly payments and default. This response is concentrated among participants who have less familiarity with repayment options, including (actual) non-borrowers and participants who are unfamiliar with income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. Other participants choose riskier, higher-paying jobs in response to the debt shock, emphasizing their priority to maximize expected earnings when debt is higher. This response is concentrated among (actual) borrowers and participants who are familiar with IDR plans, permitting them to rely on the insurance properties of these and other repayment options in the case of low earnings realizations.

“School Choice and Student Mobility from Low-Performing Schools: Evidence from the California Open Enrollment Act” (with Keshav Garud)

School choice policies can provide additional educational opportunities to students that would be otherwise constrained to their neighborhood school, but the effects of such policies depend on the spread of take-up. If take-up rates vary systematically across students by race or socioeconomic status because of persisting barriers to access, then school choice policies may change the distribution of students across schools and the level of racial or socioeconomic segregation across schools. In this paper, we empirically examine how the California Open Enrollment Act (2010-2016), which increased public school choice for students attending low-achieving public schools, impacted student enrollment patterns across schools by race and socioeconomic status. Using a staggered difference-in-difference approach, an event study, and other complementary empirical approaches, we find that total enrollment at treated, low-performing schools falls by up to 1.4% relative to comparison schools as a result of the policy, and that this effect persists for several years. Also, Hispanic student enrollment and free-and-reduced price meal (FRPM) eligible student enrollment at treated schools fall by up to 5.9% and 6.7%, respectively, suggesting that students from each of these groups move from lower- to higher-performing schools in response to the policy. These enrollment trends persist and grow over time. Our findings suggest that the Open Enrollment Act did expand public schooling options for minority students and low-income students attending low-performing schools in California, enabling them to switch to higher-performing public schools.

“Eliminating College Application Fees: Impacts on Applications, Enrollment and Competition”

While college application fees pale in comparison to the costs of tuition, room, and board, they nonetheless pose a major cost to families. Fee waivers can alleviate this financial cost for low-income families, but come with their own costs in terms of student effort and planning. In this paper, I study the application and enrollment effects of a 4-year college eliminating its application fee, using several complementary empirical approaches. I find that offering a $0 application fee increases the volume of applications received by a college by 11%, increases the college's enrollment of low-income students (Pell-grant awardees) by 4%, and increases the college's enrollment of Black students by 12% and Hispanic students by 4%, relative to enrollment trends at colleges that did not institute such a policy. I also study how these policies affect a school’s competitor institutions, to examine whether this policy increases access for students who otherwise would not have attended a 4-year college, or whether this policy simply shuffles students between similar, competing institutions. Evidence of limited competitor effects suggests that eliminating application fees may draw some students into the market for 4-year college attendance.