If You Offer It, Will They Come? Patterns of Application and Enrollment Behavior in a Universal Prekindergarten Context

Oct 15, 2026

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Universal public prekindergarten programs are expanding, yet eligible families do not always apply. Using two cohorts of 8,391 Boston Public Schools students, the study combines administrative records with census data through geographic information systems to compare apply vs. non-apply kindergarteners by student, neighborhood, and school characteristics. Nonappliers are more likely to be non-White, low income, and dual language, especially when they did not attend other prekindergarten options. The findings inform recruitment strategies to promote equitable universal enrollment.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Study overview

Application behavior and comparisons

Student-level characteristics

Neighborhood- and school-level differences

Policy context and implications

AERA Open April-June 2019, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 1–22 DOI: 10. 1177/2332858419848442 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2019. [http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) If You Offer It, Will They Come? Patterns of Application and Enrollment Behavior in a Universal Prekindergarten Context Anna Shapiro Eleanor Martin Christina Weiland University of Michigan Rebecca Unterman MDRC Universal public prekindergarten programs have been expanding in recent years, but not all eligible families apply to these programs, for reasons that are not well understood. Using two cohorts of students (N = 8,391) enrolled in Boston Public Schools, we use geographic information systems to combine administrative records with census data to compare the student-, neighborhood-, and school-level characteristics of kindergarteners who did and did not apply to the Boston Public Schools prekindergarten program. We find that nonappliers are more likely to be non-White (SD = 0.27), low income (SD = 0.11), and dual language (SD = 0.58), particularly those who did not attend any other prekindergarten program. We find similar differences at the neighborhood and school levels. Our study provides some of the first descriptive information on the sociodemographic characteristics and spatial distribution of families who opt out of applying to universal prekindergarten programs. Findings may inform recruitment strategies to promote equitable and universal prekindergarten enrollment. Keywords: descriptive analysis, early childhood, educational policy, geographic information systems, policy, school choice Gaps in academic achievement develop before children ever attend school. At kindergarten entry, children from families in the top income quintile are 1.3 SD ahead ofchildren from families in the bottom quintile in reading and math (Duncan & Magnuson, 2011) . Attending preschool reduces some of these gaps: prekindergarten programs on average close about 40% of the reading and mathematics kindergarten readiness gap between low-income and middle-class children, and the most successful programs close nearly all of the low-middle gap (Chaudry, Morrissey, Weiland, & Yoshikawa, 2017) . Beyond kindergarten entry, quasi-experimental research has found positive spillover effects of preschool attendance on the literacy and math gains of children’s kindergarten peers (Neidell & Waldfogel, 2010), perhaps through direct peer effects or indirect teacher effects (e.g., increased expectations for children, more time to focus on fewer struggling students) . In recent years, states and cities have been expanding public prekindergarten programs, in part due to their track record of reducing income-based school readiness gaps. Currently, 43 states and the District of Columbia offer free public prekindergarten programs, and five of these do sonearly universally, with a slot available for every family with an age-eligible child who wants one. Interestingly, take-up rates in the five state universal programs average only 71%, ranging from 60% in Georgia to 88% in the District of Columbia (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2018) . To date, there has been very little research on the students who are eligible to attend a no-cost prekindergarten program but choose not to participate. Some nonattenders likely attend alternate public options or private programs, but others do not attend any center-based 1 program at all. Information on who does not take up universal prekindergarten, particularly among low-income children who likely have fewer alternative options, may help states and localities better target recruitment and outreach efforts. In the present study, we examine patterns of prekindergarten application behavior and elementary school enrollment for the Boston Public Schools (BPS) prekindergarten program. Using a rich set of descr

FAQs

Why is the Boston context important for this research?

Boston’s program has shown positive effects on school readiness, serves a diverse population, and uses a lottery-based school choice system, enabling analysis of downstream elementary enrollment consequences.

Oct 15, 2026

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