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Household Finances and Post-Secondary Enrollment

Even after accounting for differences in observed student ability, students coming from lower-income households are less likely to attend college. If they attend college, lower-income students are also more likely to attend a two-year community college.

Household Finances and Post-Secondary Enrollment

Is Income Implicit in Measures of Student Ability?

Measures of student ability typically used for college admissions implicitly reflect differences in family income across students. However, high school GPA reflects differences in income noticeably less than SAT and ACT scores. However, SAT and ACT scores do capture aspects of student ability missed by school-specific rankings alone.

Is Income Implicit in Measures of Student Ability?

Student Ability and Post-Secondary Outcomes

Student performance in high school is a strong predictor of future success at college, including performance at two-year and four-year colleges, the likelihood of transferring from two-year colleges to four-year colleges, and eventually obtaining degrees.

Student Ability and Post-Secondary Outcomes

Macroeconomic and Distributional Effects of the Scheduled October 2021 Expansion of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

The USDA re-evaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan increases the average SNAP benefit by $36.24 per person per month starting in October 2021. PWBM projects that the increase in SNAP spending lowers GDP by 0.2 percent by 2031. People who receive SNAP as well as older working age individuals are helped by policy change while young people with high incomes as well as rich retirees are harmed due to lower future wages and a fall in the return to capital.

Macroeconomic and Distributional Effects of the Scheduled October 2021 Expansion of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

Who Attends Community College?

About 30 percent of students who first attend two-year community college are from families with incomes above the median income for students attending four-year colleges. Moreover, upwards of one-fifth of top students from relatively small and large high schools first attend a two-year institution.

Who Attends Community College?