The Degree Project: A Randomized Control Trial of a "College Promise" Financial Aid Program in Milwaukee

Last registered on January 13, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Degree Project: A Randomized Control Trial of a "College Promise" Financial Aid Program in Milwaukee
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015156
Initial registration date
January 11, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 13, 2025, 1:22 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Tulane University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Coleridge Initiative

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2009-07-01
End date
2019-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The Degree Project experiment was designed to test the efficacy of a promise scholarship (a type of financial aid and free college) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 2011, half of the schools in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) were assigned to treatment (i.e., it is a cluster randomized trial). To increase statistical power, we used paired randomization based on pre-treatment values of school-level college-going rates. All high school ninth graders in the treated schools were offered up to $12,000 merit-based grant that could be used to attend the vast majority of two- and four-year colleges in the state of Wisconsin. To receive the funds, students had to achieve a cumulative 2.5 GPA, attend class 90 percent of the time, graduate from an MPS high school on-time, and fill out the FAFSA. The study team had access to rich (non-public) data including K-12 academic outcomes, surveys of students during high school, college attendance and graduation, employment, earnings,. incarceration, and teen pregnancy. The study tracked students for eight years from the point of treatment.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Harris, Douglas and Jonathan Mills. 2025. "The Degree Project: A Randomized Control Trial of a "College Promise" Financial Aid Program in Milwaukee." AEA RCT Registry. January 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15156-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This experiment was designed to test the efficacy of a promise scholarship (a variant of free college) called The Degree Project, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All high school ninth graders in the treated schools were offered up to $12,000 merit-based grant that could be used to attend the vast majority of two- and four-year colleges in the state of Wisconsin. To receive the funds, students had to achieve a cumulative 2.5 GPA, attend class 90 percent of the time, graduate from an MPS high school on-time, and fill out the FAFSA. The program administrators (not the researchers) also sent regular communications to students, both at home and through their high school counselors to remind students about the scholarship, indicate whether they were meeting the requirements and provide other college-related information.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2011-11-01
Intervention End Date
2019-07-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
High school GPA, attendance, and graduation; college enrollment and graduation
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
NA

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
College expectations and college-related perceptions and plans during high school, high school test scores, "summer melt," college persistence, employment, earnings, teen pregnancy, incarceration.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
NA

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In 2011, half of the schools in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) were assigned to treatment (i.e., it is a cluster randomized trial). To increase statistical power, we used paired randomization based on pre-treatment values of school-level college-going rates. For some newer schools that did not have pre-treatment values for college enrollment rates, we used predicted rates from the available academic and demographic information. Since students often switch schools during their high school careers, and this is potentially endogenous, we kept students assigned to the schools they were attending at the start of the experiment.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization was carried out privately on a computer by the research team.
Randomization Unit
The school was the unit of randomization.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
36 schools/clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
5,050
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
18 control schools and 18 treatment schools.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Ex ante calculated MDEs (based on conservative assumptions): Attendance 0.26 s.d. GPA 0.33 s.d. Math Scores 0.19 s.d. College Entry/Graduation 8 percentage points.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Wisconsin at Madison
IRB Approval Date
2012-04-12
IRB Approval Number
SE-2011-0465
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Original IES proposal from before the project started.

MD5: 337436ecd8bc3e4613fc84dad5bd33ab

SHA1: 004ad968f8c59b25ac6ae1d111b6f70917c4acfa

Uploaded At: January 11, 2025

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
July 01, 2019, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
December 31, 2019, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
36 schools
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
5,050
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
36
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
We provide evidence on the effects of college financial aid from an eight-year
randomized trial offering high school ninth graders a $12,000 merit-based grant. The program
was designed to be free of tuition and fees at community colleges and substantially lower the
cost of attending four-year colleges. During high school, eligibility for the grant increased
students’ expectations of college attendance and low-cost college preparation effort, but not
higher-cost effort. The program likely increased graduation from two-year colleges, perhaps
because it was framed as making two-year college free, but did not affect overall college entry,
graduation, employment, incarceration, or teen pregnancy. Additional analysis helps explain
these modest effects and variation in results across prior studies.
Citation
Harris, D. & Mills, J. (forthcoming) Should college be free? Evidence from a randomized control trial. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.
Abstract
The promise of free college (and its pitfalls)
Citation
Douglas N. Harris, Raquel Farmer-Hinton, Debbie Kim, John B. Diamond, Tangela Blakely Reavis, Kelly Krupa Rifelj, Hilary Lustick, and Bradley R. Carl (2018). The promise of free college (and its potential pitfalls). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Reports & Other Materials