Working Paper: NBER ID: w12863
Authors: Pietro Garibaldi; Francesco Giavazzi; Andrea Ichino; Enrico Rettore
Abstract: Many students enrolled in academic programs around the world take longer to obtain a degree than the normal completion time while college tuition is typically constant during the years of enrollment. In particular, it does not increase when a student remains in a program beyond the normal completion time. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design on data from Bocconi University in Italy, this paper shows that an increase of 1,000 euro in the continuation tuition reduces the probability of late graduation by at least 6.1 percentage points with respect to a benchmark average probability of 80%. We conclude suggesting that an increase in continuation tuition is efficient when effort is suboptimally supplied, for instance in the presence of public subsidies to education, congestion externalities and/or peer effects.
Keywords: tuition; graduation; regression discontinuity; college completion
JEL Codes: C31; I21
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| increase in continuation tuition (I22) | decrease in the likelihood of late graduation (D29) |
| increase in continuation tuition (I22) | increase in student effort (D29) |
| increase in student effort (D29) | increase in overall speed of degree completion (D29) |
| increase in continuation tuition (I22) | increase in overall speed of degree completion (D29) |