Different Paths to College Success - The Impact of Massachusetts' Charter Schools on College Trajectories

Oct 15, 2026

The paper examines how Massachusetts charter school models affect college preparation, enrollment, and graduation. In the 2010s study context, urban charters primarily used “No Excuses” practices, while nonurban charters showed greater model variety. Using randomized admissions lotteries, the analysis finds urban charters improve all measured outcomes. Nonurban charters increase college enrollment and graduation even while lowering state test scores and reducing AP enrollment. Nonurban graduation gains exceed urban effects.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages40

Reading Time1 h 41 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Research question and approach

Charter school models compared

Main findings

Institutional context and acknowledgements

Program on Education Policy and Governance Conference Papers Series Different Paths to College Success: The Impact of Massachusetts’Charter Schools on College Trajectories Sarah Cohodes, and Astrid Pineda 1 PEPG 25-05 This paper was presented at the School Choice Tradeoffs and Evidence-Based Policy Making conference held at the Harvard Kennedy School, May 8-9, 2025 Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK Street, Taubman 220 Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617-495-7976 Fax: 617-496-4428 [www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/](www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/) 1 Cohodes: University of Michigan and NBER; Pineda: Columbia University. Different Paths to College Success: The Impact of Massachusetts’ Charter Schools on College Trajectories ∗ Sarah R. Cohodes Astrid Pineda February 25, 2025 Abstract The charter school movement encompasses many school models. In Massachusetts in the 2010’s, the site of our study, urban charter schools primarily used “No Excuses” practices, whereas nonurban charters had greater model variety. Using randomized admissions lotteries, we estimate the impact of charter schools by locality on college preparation, enrollment, and graduation. Urban charter schools boost all of these outcomes. Nonurban charter schools raise college enrollment and graduation despite reducing state test scores and AP enrollment. Notably, the nonurban charter college graduation edge is more than twice as large as that from urban charter attendance. ∗ Cohodes: Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan and NBER (email: [scohodes@umich.edu](scohodes@umich.edu)); Pineda: Teachers College, Columbia University (email: [acp2212@tc.columbia.edu](acp2212@tc.columbia.edu)). We are grateful to Carrie Conaway, Matthew Deninger, Elana McDermott, Alison Bagg, and the staff of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Massachusetts charter schools for facilitating the data access that made this project possible. Astrid Sandsør, Chris Torres, Samantha Eyler-Driscoll, and seminar and conference participants at AEFP, Boston University, IZA, the Midwest Economics of Education Conference, the NBER Economics of Education Meeting, the University of Arkansas, the University of Michigan, and the University of Rochester provided helpful comments. Noa Benveniste provided excellent research support. Thanks also go to the City Fund and Blueprint Labs for financial support for this project. Cohodes’s contribution to the preparation of this manuscript was funded by a grant from the Research Council of Norway, Project Number 325245 . Pineda was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305B200017 to Teachers College Columbia University. Benveniste’s research assistant role was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305B200011 to the University of Michigan. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Institute of Education Sciences or the U.S. Department of Education. This research was deemed exempt from human subjects review by the Institutional Review Boards of Teachers College Columbia University and the University of Michigan. Despite the recent decline in the college wage premium, college graduates still outearn their peers with only a high-school diploma by 75 percent (Bengali et al., 2023; Autor et al., 2023) . With much policy and research in the United States focused on college access, we know less about how K–12 educational experiences contribute to college success (Dynarski et al., 2023) . This paper uses application lotteries to show the causal effects of one K–12 educational intervention—charter schools—on college preparation, enrollment, and graduation. Charter schools are autonomously operated public schools with oversight, curricular, budgetary, and hiring independence from traditional school districts. They are authorized by a stateempowered ent

FAQs

What distinguishes urban and nonurban charter schools in Massachusetts in the study period?

Urban charter schools primarily used “No Excuses” practices, while nonurban charters had greater model variety.

How does the paper estimate the causal impact of charter schools?

It uses randomized admissions lotteries to compare outcomes for students by locality and school type.

What are the main college-related outcomes the paper measures?

The study focuses on college preparation, college enrollment, and college graduation.

Oct 15, 2026

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