Applying to college: Do information deficits lower the likelihood of college-eligible students from less-privileged families to pursue their college intentions?: Evidence from a field experiment.

Information deficits are considered an important source of why students from less-privileged families do not enroll in college, even when they are college-eligible and intend to go to college. In this paper, we examine whether correct and detailed information on the costs of and returns to higher education increases the likelihood of college applications of less-privileged high school graduates who expressed college intentions in their junior high school year. We employ an experimental design with a randomly assigned 25-minute information treatment about funding opportunities for, and returns to, higher education given at Berlin schools awarding university entrance qualifications.