This dataset supports research on college financial aid application frictions among recent US high school graduates. It is used to replicate findings that 11% of graduates did not apply for federal aid due to difficulty, mistaken beliefs, or lack of awareness. The data underpins a life cycle model analyzing the impact of these frictions on college enrollment and welfare.
Use Cases
- Analyze the correlation between application frictions (like filing difficulty) and college enrollment outcomes.
- Model heterogeneous filing costs as a factor in a general equilibrium life cycle model of college enrollment.
- Estimate welfare gains from eliminating frictions, specifically for subgroups with high skill and poor parents.
- Investigate the prevalence of mistaken beliefs about federal student aid among recent high school graduates.
Strengths
- Based on research documenting a specific, quantified friction: 11% of recent US high school graduates did not apply for aid.
- Includes data for modeling heterogeneous filing costs within a general equilibrium framework.
- Enables analysis of welfare impacts on specific affected subgroups, such as high-skill individuals from poor families.
Limitations
- Specific data structure, column details, and sample size are unknown.
- Geographic scope is limited to the United States, limiting cross-country comparative analysis.
- The raw description does not specify the year(s) of data collection, creating potential recency concerns.
Provenance
- Source
- ICPSR Harvested Dataverse
- Collection Method
- null
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- United States of America