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Improving College Choice for the Poorest Students Using Behavioral Policy Interventions

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Improving College Choice for the Poorest Students Using Behavioral Policy Interventions Improving College Choice for the Poorest Students Using Behavioral Policy Interventions by Xiaoyang Ye A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Higher Education) in The University of Michigan 2019 Doctoral Committee: Professor Susan M. Dynarski, Co-Chair Professor Brian A. Jacob, Co-Chair Professor Stephen L. DesJardins Professor Brian P. McCall Professor Jeffery A. Smith, University of Wisconsin-Madison Xiaoyang Ye [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2872-824X c Xiaoyang Ye 2019 DEDICATION To Samuel Pollard (1864-1915) Y. C. James Yen (1890-1990) Ronald Yu Soong Cheng (1899-1992) Li Zhi (1978-) For Their faith, struggle, sacrifice, enlightenment In expanding educational opportunities for the poorest people ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS \Only the educated are free." \You don't have to say a word." We human beings often think that living for a long time is a long life. But we don't know how many wrinkles can be folded in a second. Much of my life has been a white pony flashing by while sprinkling scores of glowing fireflies into the universe. It has been a blessing to have all the people behind me or above the sky. One of the motives for my Ph.D. studies is the authorization to write the Acknowledgments section. This is for them. First and foremost, I gratefully acknowledge the six years under the essential guidance, mentoring, and support from my dissertation committee: Stephen DesJardins, Susan Dy- narski, Brian Jacob, Brian McCall, and Jeffrey Smith. Six years ago, I decided to choose Michigan over other options because all of them are here (Jeff, you were here). I aspired - or maybe in an appropriate word, dreamed - to be a future education policy researcher like them with a dedication to scientifically rigorous research for important real-world problems. I am extremely grateful to the opportunity that I have managed to have them on my com- mittee. I hope what I have learned from them, what I have done in the research with them or independently, and what I plan to do in the coming years with them or independently would make me \an officially qualified student" of theirs. I also hope all those things would theoretically and empirically demonstrate that I made an optimal life choice to come to Ann Arbor, as well as that they made a \non-bad" choice to have me as a student. Susan Dynarski is famous! It is partly because of her Does Aid Matter paper, and I got to know that paper ten years ago. On December 24, 2009, two days after returning to Beijing from volunteer-teaching in a village school in Northwestern China, I worked overnight to finish the review report of the Aid paper for my senior thesis course. In my early twenties, when I thought Soccer Weekly much more attractive than AER, I did not know what would happen to me in the next ten years. But, as it happened, fortune stood me. Brian Jacob is not less famous. Nearly one year later, I read Brian's 884-cited Account- ability paper in my first-year master's Economics of Education class. This paper was the first to motivate my long-term interests in studying incentives in education policy. Without iii counterfactuals, I cannot assert that I would not have stepped down the Ph.D. journey (vs. a business career as I can easily see the average in my close friends) in the absence of en- countering these two great papers early in my career. But when it came to a choice between Michigan and other places, I saw the answer is within the papers. Sue and Brian have been the best dissertation co-chairs that I could hope for. As one of the youngest members of the army that they have trained, I have gained every expertise that is needed for conducting the modern cutting-edge research as well as for teaching the new generation of education policy professionals as they do. Their guidance has helped me get through many highs and lows: they care about my study, my research, my family, and my life. In the summer of 2014, I wrote to accept the continuing research assistant position: yes, I'd like to continue in the following year, and many years. They replied: not TOO many years, we want you to graduate and feed your family! Not too many years later, I made it! I have been lucky enough to join a second wonderful research group at Michigan, led by Stephen DesJardins and Brian McCall. Steve interviewed me during the doctoral program application and brought me to Michigan. We pleasantly extended the 30-minute interview into a 2-hour conversation. For the past six years, Steve has spent countless hours helping me in every possible way. As Ozan wrote in his dissertation acknowledgments, Steve fights for us behind our back: he guided my coursework training, provided research collaboration oppor- tunities, supervised my teaching of the advanced quantitative course in which I experienced the largest value-added in my teaching interests and skills, taught me to be professional in the field of higher education, and babysit my year-long job search. I appreciate that Steve always pushes me to think deeper about the theories and contexts in higher education to bridge the border between economics and education. Brian has offered much of his generous guidance and support together with Steve. I first met Brian in Beijing when we were at the 2012 International Conference of Economics of Education. My research at that time focused on K-12 education, but I was quite impressed by Brian's (& Steve's) research. I enjoyed the collaboration with Brian and Steve in the past years on high school coursetaking and college choice. I also thank Brian for taking care of my first year and particularly for recommending me a course sequence of formal economics training. I started to interact with Jeffery Smith in his doctoral-level Applied Econometrics class and the CIERS seminars. Before Jeff left Ann Arbor, he attended all my CIERS presenta- tions. On December 29, 2015, Jeff sent me a long list of comments on my descriptive paper of college undermatch in China that I presented in September - much longer than all the referee reports that I have received for that paper in field top journals. Though all my com- mittee members are world-class economists, Jeff has played a statistically and substantially significant role in keeping me methodologically correct in my papers. I also like his personal iv stories in the economics profession that Jeff shared in the Causal Inference in Education Pol- icy class. Jeff is exceptionally generous with his time. He made his time available to meet whenever he came back to Ann Arbor. I greatly appreciate his care and encouragement for my job search. It was great to give an official job talk when a committee member was in the audience to show his support! I hope I could do it once again in the near future. Many professors at Michigan have provided valuable conversations and support that re- sulted in this dissertation, including John Bound, Phillip Bowman, Isaac McFarlin, Natasha Pilkauskas, Kevin Stange, and Christina Weiland. I also thank Peter Bahr, Mike Bastedo, Lisa Lattuca, Jan Lawrence, Vilma Mesa, Julie Posselt, Awilda Rodriguez, Ed Silver in the School of Education for their help. Jessica Mason, Linda Rayle, and Melinda Richardson were always ready with answers to the messy administrative questions. As an \empirically- minded Stata runner," I very much enjoyed the qualitative research class by Pamela Moss. Special thanks to John DiNardo for having shaped my mind of empirical research and, more importantly, for showing me how to laugh at and enjoy life, no matter how tough it is. I have benefited tremendously from many other professors in our field. I thank Dom Brewer for the Ph.D. admission offer and his continuous support over the entire course of my Ph.D. journey. I thank Siwei Cheng, Sean Corcoran, Will Doyle, Avi Feller, Lindsay Page, Laura Perna, Yu Xie, and Liang Zhang, all of who provided very helpful conversations that influenced the dissertation chapters and my academic career in general. I am particularly grateful to Xiaogang Wu for initiating me into rigorous empirical research. Thanks also go to Richard Murnane, Karthik Muralidharan, and Noreen Webb for their exceptional mentoring during the NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship. Special thanks to Michal Kurlaender for her great advice and help in the past few years. I thank Prashant Loyalka, my co-author for many papers, for his enthusiasm for Chinese education policy problems, for being a role model of a great researcher, and for his advice and close friendship throughout my doctoral studies. Our first paper on college undermatch directly motivated the Bright Future of China Project. Thanks also go to Michelle and the Loyalka kids for warm hosting during my visits to Stanford. Scott Rozelle and the REAP team also provided a welcoming research environment and insightful conversations. Perhaps I could never find a better intellectual home than the Education Policy Initia- tive. I spent nearly 20,000 hours on the fifth floor of Weill Hall and saw many people come and go in the past six years. Most importantly, we worked together to improve education for all. The staff team is phenomenal: Julie Monterio de Castro, Tedi Engler, Mahima Mahade- van, Nicole Wagner, DeVante Rollins, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, and Ramona Avram were very reliable and endless sources of administrative assistance. EPI has gathered many bril- liant young education policy scholars, and I have been lucky enough to work with multiple v cohorts and enjoy the unique friendship.
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