TY - JOUR
T1 - The Effect of Florida’s Bright Futures Program on College Choice
T2 - A Regression Discontinuity Approach
AU - Zhang, Liang
AU - Hu, Shouping
AU - Sun, Liang
AU - Pu, Shi
N1 - Funding Information:
The state of Florida was one of the earliest states to adopt a state-sponsored merit aid program. In 1981, it established the Florida Undergraduate Scholars Fund (which later became the Florida Academic Scholars [FAS] Award), a merit-based financial aid program (Hu, Tren-gove, & Zhang, 2012). In 1991, Florida introduced its second statewide merit-based program when it initiated the Vocational Gold Seal Scholarship (which later became the Florida Gold Seal Vocational [GSV] Scholars award) specifically for vocational students. After observing the HOPE scholarship program in neighboring Georgia and voters’ discontent with the use of state lottery proceeds, the Florida legislature created and funded the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program in 1997. The previously existing two programs—FAS and GSV—were integrated into the newly created Bright Futures program. The major change in 1997 was the addition of the Florida Medallion Scholars Award (FMS) program, which broadened participation of students in merit aid programs in the state of Florida and significantly increased total funding to merit-based financial aid. It is noteworthy that because some parts of the Bright Futures program had existed before 1997, comparing student college choices before and after 1997 would yield the additional effects due to program changes in 1997, which would almost certainly underestimate the effect of the Bright Futures program as a whole. In contrast, the regression discontinuity approach may yield accurate estimates of the program effects by exploiting changes in the magnitude of financial aid and student college choice behaviors at some predetermined threshold points.
Funding Information:
Considering that students’ overall GPAs could be quite different from the GPAs used to determine aid eligibility, we further evaluated the overall severity of the misclassification problem by requesting data on Bright Futures award disbursement from Florida’s Department of Education. These data, however, did not allow us to fully assess the misclassification problem for two reasons. First, information on actual award disbursement was only available for those who attend Florida’s public institutions. In other words, if a student attends an out-of-state institution or a private college in Florida, her eligibility is not available from this file. Second, the financial aid office only retains a partial list of award disbursement. In other words, even a student attends a public college in Florida and has received Bright Future awards, there is not guarantee that she appears in the award disbursement file. Among the 2003–04 high school senior cohort (approximately 83 thousand with either SAT or ACT scores), a total of 22,240 students are included in the award disbursement file; while among the 2004–05 cohort, only a total of 658 students are included in the award file, and this number is even lower at 302 among the 2005–06 cohort.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 by The Ohio State University.
PY - 2016/1/1
Y1 - 2016/1/1
N2 - This study evaluates the effect of Florida’s Bright Future Program on student college choices. We used regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of two award levels, which had different SAT/ACT thresholds, on the probability of students choosing in-state public colleges and four-year public colleges. The most consistent and robust finding was the positive, significant increases in the probability of attending Florida’s public colleges and in the probability of choosing four-year public colleges for those students who barely met the program eligibility criteria when compared with those who barely missed those criteria. That is, the evidence presented in this analysis points to the fact that the Bright Future programs significantly altered students’ college choices, both in terms of attending in-state public colleges and four-year public colleges. Although this finding held at different award levels and for students who took the SAT and/or ACT tests, the magnitude of the program effect varied along these factors.
AB - This study evaluates the effect of Florida’s Bright Future Program on student college choices. We used regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of two award levels, which had different SAT/ACT thresholds, on the probability of students choosing in-state public colleges and four-year public colleges. The most consistent and robust finding was the positive, significant increases in the probability of attending Florida’s public colleges and in the probability of choosing four-year public colleges for those students who barely met the program eligibility criteria when compared with those who barely missed those criteria. That is, the evidence presented in this analysis points to the fact that the Bright Future programs significantly altered students’ college choices, both in terms of attending in-state public colleges and four-year public colleges. Although this finding held at different award levels and for students who took the SAT and/or ACT tests, the magnitude of the program effect varied along these factors.
KW - college choice
KW - merit aid
KW - regression discontinuity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136386354&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/00221546.2016.11777396
DO - 10.1080/00221546.2016.11777396
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85136386354
SN - 0022-1546
VL - 87
SP - 115
EP - 146
JO - Journal of Higher Education
JF - Journal of Higher Education
IS - 1
ER -