Low-income students, even those with strong academic credentials, are unlikely to attend a highly selective college. With a field experiment, we test an intervention to increase enrollment of low-income students at the highly selective University of Michigan. We contact students (as well as their parents and principals) with an encouragement to…

I conduct a statewide experiment in Michigan with nearly 50,000 high-achieving high school seniors. Treated students are mailed a letter encouraging them to consider college and providing them with the web address of a college information website. I find that very high-achieving, low-income students, and very high-achieving, minority students are…

Dual-credit courses expose high school students to college-level content and provide the opportunity to earn college credits, in part to smooth the transition to college. With the Tennessee Department of Education, we conduct the first randomized controlled trial of the effects of dual-credit math coursework on a range of high school and college…

The U.S. Department of Education tested a set of promising, low-cost advising strategies, called "Find the Fit," designed to help low-income and "first generation" students enrolled in the Department's Upward Bound program choose more selective colleges and stay in until they complete a degree. About 200 Upward Bound projects…

One of the most important questions in education research is whether the gains from interventions for which perceived short-term success can be sustained. The possibility of short-lived impacts is especially relevant for research on charter schools, where charter operators who face high-stakes assessments have an incentive to "teach to the…