Do Place‒Based College Scholarship Programs Promote District Enrollments?

Abstract

Place‒based college scholarship programs have been adopted around the world in an effort to help an economically disadvantageous city to attract new residents and businesses. In this paper, we provide an analysis of the impact of the Say Yes to Education policy implemented in Buffalo, New York on district enrollments. Based on the regression discontinuity analysis, we find that the policy was successful in increasing public school enrollments in Buffalo in the first two years of the program, including a reversal of the longstanding decline in the number of white students in the districts. The increases are most pronounced in kindergarten and before high school, the points at which students must enroll to receive full or partial scholarship eligibility. We do not find similar patterns in other districts, providing support for the conclusion that these increases are related to the program. We also find evidence that increases in BPS enrollments may have come, at least in part, from private schools in Erie County, which lost significant enrollment at the same time. Our results provide policy implication for cities that are suffering from population outflow issues. The analysis suggests that policy such as place‒based scholarship programs may have positive impact on reversing the population outflow trend.