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Title: College Prospects and Risky Behavior among Mexican Immigrant Youth: The Effect of In-State Tuition Policies

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2013

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Abstract: This paper examines how a reduction in the cost of college for undocumented students affects college enrollment and adolescent risky behaviors. Prior to 2001, undocumented students in the United States faced high out-of-state tuition costs at public colleges. From 2001 to 2013, sixteen states passed in-state tuition policies, reducing the cost of college up to seven-fold for these students. To the extent that teens are forward-looking and aware that lower tuition increases the likelihood of attending college, this price reduction should decrease the incidence of risky behavior during adolescence among the undocumented. Exploiting the variation in timing of instate tuition policies across states and using Mexican foreign-born non-citizenship as a proxy for undocumented status, I find that these policies increase future college enrollment by about 1.5 percentage points (18% of the sample mean), decrease high school dropout incidence by about 3 percentage points (10% of the sample mean), and decrease the teenage birth rate by 15% (on average, 24 births per 1000 teenage women).

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Authors: Koohi, Shiva

Publisher: Brown University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Crime and Deviance, Education

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