Beyond the enrolment gap - Financial barriers and high-achieving, low-income students' persistence in higher education

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by James

This paper examines what drives high-achieving, low-income students’ persistence in higher education, focusing on credit constraints. Using exhaustive administrative data for France, it estimates the causal effect of automatically granting generous additional aid to eligible enrolled students, when eligibility is too late to change initial enrolment. The results show precisely estimated null effects on persistence and graduation, with no evidence of switching to higher-quality degrees, indicating largely non-financial explanations for observed attrition.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages70

Reading Time2 h 56 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Persistence and intensive margin

Policy setting: merit aid (aide au mérite)

Credit constraints and expected effects

Discussion Paper ISSN 2042-2695 No. 1987 Revised November 2024 (Replaced April 2024 version) Beyond the enrolment gap: Financial barriers and high-achieving, low-income students'persistence in higher education Gustave Kenedi Abstract Little is known about what influences high-achieving, low-income students' persistence in higher education, despite extensive work on their enrolment decision. This paper investigates the role of credit constraints. Using exhaustive administrative data for France, I estimate the impact of automatically granting generous additional aid to enrolled high-achieving, low-income students. Eligibility is communicated too late to affect initial enrolment, allowing me to recover the pure effect on the intensive margin. I find this aid had precisely estimated null effects on persistence, graduation, and did not induce switches to higher quality degrees. This suggests non-financial factors largely explain these students'observed attrition. Keywords: financial aid, higher education, high-achieving low-income students JEL Codes: I22; I23; I24; I28 This paper was produced as part of the Centre’s Education & Skills Programme. The Centre for Economic Performance is financed by the Economic and Social Research Council. I am grateful to the staff at the French Ministry of Education (MENJS-DEPP) and at the Ministry of Higher Education (MESRI-SIES) for making the data available to me and for their assistance with it. This research was funded by a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency as part ofthe Investissements d’Avenir program LIEPP (ANR-11-LABX-0091, ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02) and the Université de Paris IdEx (ANR-18-IDEX-0001) and was partly conducted while at PSE’s Education policy and social mobility chair, the financial support of which I gratefully acknowledge. I also benefited from ESRC support through the Centre for Economic Performance. This paper benefited from very helpful feedback and suggestions from Luc Behaghel, Pierre Cahuc, Pierre-Philippe Combes, Gabrielle Fack, Julien Grenet, Ségal Le Guern Herry, Lindsey Macmillan, Sandra McNally, Isabelle Méjean, José Montalban, Roland Rathelot, Margaux Suteau, and Guglielmo Ventura as well as participants at the 2021 AFSE-DG Trésor Policy Evaluation Conference, the 21st Journées LAGV, the 36th Annual Conference of the ESPE, the 2022 EEA Annual Congress, and seminars at LIEPP and Sciences Po. I also thank Matias Cattaneo for kindly answering questions related to rdrobust. Gustave Kenedi, Centre for Economic Performance at London School of Economics. Published by Centre for Economic Performance London School of Economic and Political Science Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher nor be issued to the public or circulated in any form other than that in which it is published. Requests for permission to reproduce any article or part of the Working Paper should be sent to the editor at the above address. 􀂔 G. Kenedi, published April 2024, revised November 2024. 1 Introduction In many countries, low-income students enrol in higher education at lower rates, in lower quality institutions and are less likely to graduate than their high-income peers, even when they are top performers in high school (Hoxby and Avery, 2013; Crawford et al., 2016; Altmejd et al., 2023) . This is especially worrisome since these talented but disadvantaged students stand to benefit greatly from attending elite institutions (Dillon and Smith, 2020), thereby improving intergenerational mobility and generating more efficient allocations of talent (Bell et al., 2019) . Extensive research has investigated the underlying reasons behind their application and enrolment behaviors, the extensive margin.1 However, less is known about the factors that inf

FAQs

What key factor does the paper investigate for persistence after enrolment?

It investigates the role of credit constraints and how relaxing them through additional financial aid may affect students’ persistence in higher education.

How does the paper address the challenge of separating aid effects on enrolment from persistence?

It uses a policy where eligibility is communicated too late to influence initial enrolment, allowing identification of the pure intensive-margin effect on enrolled students.

What are the main findings regarding the impact of the merit aid on persistence and graduation?

The paper finds precisely estimated null effects on persistence and graduation, and no evidence that students switch to higher-quality degrees.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by James