09:20 - 11:00
Location: 222 - Floor 1
Chair/s:
Lina Restrepo-Plaza
Lina Restrepo-Plaza - Narratives of Trust: Using Behavioral Communication to Reduce Perceived Discrimination and Mistrust in Justice Institutions
Jonas Stein - Dissimilarity Can Promote Social Learning
Axel Franzen - The Limits of Conformity
Ondřej Krčál - The Demand for HPV Vaccination: Evidence from a Survey Experiment
Michael Sanders - Information Provision and University Attendance: Evidence from a National Field Experiment
Submission 193
Information Provision and University Attendance: Evidence from a National Field Experiment
panel.4-222 - Floor 1-05
Presented by: Michael Sanders
Michael Sanders 1, Vanessa Todman 1, Emma Stockdale 2, Vanessa Hirneis 1
1 King's College London
2 National employment savings trust
Universities offer bursaries and scholarships for low income students, which vary considerably in terms of their generosity and the range of people who are eligible for them. However, students are unaware of the support they are eligible for prior to attending university, meaning their effect at helping young people decide whether to attend university is limited at best. In this paper, we conduct a national level natural field experiment with 65,000 students attending 570 institutions, in which schools are assigned at random to receive booklets for their students that give them information about all income contingent bursaries offered by universities, or not to. Variations are also tested in the way information is presented in letters accompanying. We find modest positive effects of the intervention on university attendance overall, the equivalent of an extra 1000 students attending university in the treatment group compared to the control. There is no effect detectable on attendance at a selective university, defined by the top third of universities based on the grades required to attend. Effects are slightly, but not significantly, smaller for disadvantaged students compared to non-disadvantaged students, based on eligibility for free school meals.
2 National employment savings trust
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