Table Of ContentDECISION MAKING FOR
STUDENT SUCCESS
“Using clear explanations and numerous examples, the authors present an array of
innovative practices shown to improve the educational outcomes for students. Drawing
from research in multiple fi elds, the authors provide a nuanced picture of the challenges
students face when making college decisions to help us understand not only why these
barriers are so formidable, but also very real ways to overcome them. This book is a great
resource for anyone working to support college access and success in this complex world.”
—Bridget Terry Long, Saris Professor of Education and Economics,
Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA
“A terrifi c, accessible introduction to the power of ‘nudges’ in improving education.
Researchers, educators, and anyone who wants to lend a hand to struggling students
will fi nd important insights in this volume.”
—Susan Dynarski, Professor of Economics, Education and Public Policy,
University of Michigan, USA
Each year, many students with affordable college options and the academic skills needed
to succeed do not enroll at all, enroll at institutions where they are not well-positioned
for success, or drop out of college before earning a credential. Efforts to address these
challenges have included changes in fi nancial aid policy, increased availability of
information, and enhanced academic support. This volume argues that the effi cacy of
these strategies can be improved by taking account of contemporary research on how
students make choices. In Decision Making for Student Success , scholars from the fi elds
of behavioral economics, education, and public policy explore contemporary research
on decision making and highlight behavioral insights that can improve postsecondary
access and success. This exciting volume will provide scholars, researchers, and higher
education administrators with valuable perspectives and low-cost strategies that they
can employ to improve outcomes for underserved populations.
Benjamin L. Castleman is an Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy at
the University of Virginia, USA.
Saul Schwartz is a Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton Uni-
versity, Canada.
Sandy Baum is a Research Professor of Education Policy at George Washington
University and a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, USA.
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DECISION MAKING FOR
STUDENT SUCCESS
Behavioral Insights to Improve
College Access and Persistence
Edited by Benjamin L. Castleman,
Saul Schwartz, and Sandy Baum
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editors to be identifi ed as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Decision Making for Student Success–
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number:
2014040949
ISBN: 978-1-138-78497-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-78498-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-76793-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Sandy Baum, Benjamin L. Castleman, and Saul Schwartz
1 Behavioral Economics and Postsecondary Access: A Primer 1
B enjamin L. Castleman, Sandy Baum, and Saul Schwartz
2 Motivation, Behavior, and Performance in the Workplace:
Insights for Student Success in Higher Education 20
C harles Kurose
3 Student Aid, Student Behavior, and Educational Attainment 38
S andy Baum and Saul Schwartz
4 How Can Financial Incentives Improve the Success of
Disadvantaged College Students? Insights from
the Social Sciences 63
N icole M. Stephens and Sarah S. M. Townsend
5 Prompts, Personalization, and Pay-Offs: Strategies
to Improve the Design and Delivery of College
and Financial Aid Information 79
B enjamin L. Castleman
vi Contents
6 The Shapeless River: Does a Lack of Structure Inhibit
Students’ Progress at Community Colleges? 102
J udith Scott-Clayton
7 Prepare for Class, Attend, and Participate! Incentives
and Student Success in College 124
R obert M. Shireman and Joshua A. Price
8 Behavioral Nudges for College Success: Research,
Impact, and Possibilities 143
J ill Frankfort, Ross E. O’Hara, and Kenneth Salim
Glossary 163
Contributors 167
Index 169
PREFACE
Sandy Baum, Benjamin L. Castleman,
and Saul Schwartz
Efforts to increase the number of students who enroll and succeed in postsec-
ondary education are rooted in concerns about both the labor market needs of
the U.S. economy and the persistent disparities in college access and comple-
tion. Over the decade from 2002 to 2012, when 80 percent to 83 percent of
recent high school graduates from families in the highest quintile of the income
distribution enrolled in college, the postsecondary enrollment rate in the lowest
quintile of the income distribution fl uctuated between 51 percent and 58 percent.
For middle-income students the range was 58 percent to 67 percent (National
Center for Education [NCES], 2013).
Moreover, many students who enroll do not complete the credentials they
are seeking. Of those who began their studies in 2007, 56 percent had earned
degrees or certifi cates six years later; 15 percent were still enrolled; and the
remaining 29 percent had not earned a credential and were no longer enrolled
at any postsecondary institution (Shapiro, Dundar, Ziskin, Yuan, & Harrell, 2013).
Some of the barriers to greater educational attainment are clear. Education is
expensive, and we have to be sure both that funds are available to support those
who cannot independently afford to pay for college and that students earlier in
their schooling know that fi nancial assistance will continue to be available in the
future so that they can confi dently invest in preparing and planning for college.
Another challenge to resolving inequalities in college access and success is the
dramatic disparity in the quality of our elementary and secondary schools. Too
many young people graduate from high school unprepared to do college-level
work—if they graduate at all.
Diminishing fi nancial barriers and improving academic preparation require
both systemic change and signifi cant ongoing investment. At the same time,
there are many students each year who have the academic skills to succeed in
viii Preface
college and have affordable college options, but who do not enroll at all, enroll
at institutions where they are not as well-positioned for success as they might be
elsewhere, or drop out of college before earning a credential. These are students
whose postsecondary outcomes educators and policymakers could conceivably
infl uence with targeted investments in the near term.
Designing effective strategies for improving student success requires in-depth
understanding of how students make choices, how their behaviors and responses
to opportunities and circumstances affect their educational outcomes, how they
process available information, and how the structure of the student aid system
and the classroom might either interfere with or support their aspirations. This
is the focus of the chapters in this collection.
Increased understanding of human behavior and decision-making processes
is contributing to a number of policy areas. For instance, strategies to simplify
information about available choices or to provide people with prompts to fol-
low through on intentions they have set for themselves have generated posi-
tive outcomes in a range of fi elds, from retirement planning to public health.
The chapters in this volume represent an important step in extending these
approaches into the area of postsecondary education. Taken as a whole, these
chapters provide important insights into potential strategies for improving edu-
cational attainment. These strategies are not likely to provide the solutions to
the problems of inadequate funding and inadequate academic preparation. But
they may move the needle on efforts to support students in overcoming other
hurdles to college success.
This volume grew out of a project supported by a grant from the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation to the George Washington University Graduate School
of Education and Human Development and led by Sandy Baum, Robert Shire-
man, and Patricia Steele. Earlier versions of some of the chapters included here
were part of the project and others have been added.
Chapter 1 is a primer on behavioral concepts. It will help readers unfamil-
iar with behavioral principles to become familiar with the terminology used
in this volume. The primer includes clear examples of how students facing
complex and unfamiliar decisions and processes might end up missing out on
opportunities that would help them to achieve their postsecondary goals. A
glossary at the end of the book provides a quick reference for readers, with
defi nitions and clarifi cation of the concepts discussed in the eight chapters in
this volume.
The Chapters
The insights of cognitive psychology and behavioral economics remind us that
the standard economic models of rational, utility-maximizing individuals are not
adequate for developing a comprehensive understanding of how people behave.
Preface ix
These insights suggest that there are ways to “nudge” people into making choices
consistent with their long-run interests and goals.
While our focus in this volume is on postsecondary education outcomes,
it is clear that we can learn from studies of the ways people behave in other
environments. In Chapter 2, “Motivation, Behavior, and Performance in the
Workplace: Insights for Student Success in Higher Education,” Charles Kurose
looks to the literature on motivation and its relationship to performance in the
workplace. His goal is to fi nd potential lessons for higher education in studies
of effective strategies for improving workplace outcomes. Kurose emphasizes the
importance of goal setting and the prevalent fi nding that specifi c, challenging
goals elicit the best outcomes. However, because completing college is a complex
task that spans multiple years, these goals should focus on learning processes
rather than on fi nal performance outcomes. The goals should direct attention
and effort toward development of the skills and abilities that one needs in order
to succeed in college, rather than toward general goals students are unlikely to
know how to achieve.
In Chapter 3, “Student Aid, Student Behavior, and Educational Attainment,”
Sandy Baum and Saul Schwartz examine the fi nancial aid system’s impact on
student choices and behaviors. They discuss the importance of simple incentives
like giving students more money when they enroll in more courses and make
more academic progress; they focus primarily on insights from behavioral eco-
nomics and cognitive psychology, which suggest that responses are less straight-
forward. For example, in the face of complexity, students, like anyone else, are
likely to take the path of least resistance, going with the most salient option or
the one that requires the least action, and they weigh potential losses more than
potential gains of the same magnitude. The authors suggest ways in which the
current system of grants and loans may exacerbate these tendencies, rather than
counteracting them. They discuss the tendency for people to over-estimate their
ability to beat the odds, leading to choices that may be self-defeating, such as
excessive borrowing for college. Rather than advocating a specifi c set of policy
changes, Baum and Schwartz focus on increasing our understanding of how
the student aid system shapes student behaviors and how modifi cations might
facilitate the goals of improved access and success.
In Chapter 4, “How Can Financial Incentives Improve the Success of Dis-
advantaged College Students? Insights from the Social Sciences,” Nicole M. Stephens
and Sarah S. M. Townsend emphasize the role of incentives and how a better
understanding of the complexities of human decision making can strengthen
our ability to provide an environment in which students adopt behaviors more
likely to further their goals. The authors examine the potential effectiveness
of fi nancial incentives in modifying student behaviors. Their analysis is in the
context of key barriers facing disadvantaged students seeking a college educa-
tion. They argue that properly designed fi nancial incentives have the potential
