Working Paper: NBER ID: w15932
Authors: Aimee Chin; Chinhui Juhn
Abstract: Ten states, beginning with Texas and California in 2001, have passed laws permitting undocumented students to pay the in-state tuition rate - rather than the more expensive out-of-state tuition rate - at public universities and colleges. We exploit state-time variation in the passage of the laws to evaluate the effects of these laws on the educational outcomes of Hispanic childhood immigrants who are not U.S. citizens. Specifically, through the use of individual-level data from the 2001-2005 American Community Surveys supplemented by the 2000 U.S. Census, we estimate the effect of the laws on the probability of attending college for 18- to 24-year-olds who have a high school degree and the probability of dropping out of high school for 16- to 17-year-olds. We find some evidence suggestive of a positive effect of the laws on the college attendance of older Mexican men, although estimated effects of the laws in general are not significantly different from zero.
Keywords: Undocumented immigrants; In-state tuition; Educational outcomes; College attendance; Hispanic immigrants
JEL Codes: I22; I28
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| State laws allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition (K37) | College attendance of older Mexican men (aged 22-24) (I23) |
| State laws allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition (K37) | Probability of attending college for 18-24 year-olds (I23) |
| State laws allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition (K37) | Probability of dropping out of high school for 16-17 year-olds (I21) |
| State laws allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition (K37) | Educational outcomes for affected individuals (I21) |