HOMER – How to Make College More Affordable

Public institutions use different measures to help low-income households cover the costs of their children’s post-secondary education. One such approach is the use of incentivized savings accounts dedicated to education. While evidence is growing on the short- and medium-term effects of these programs, little is known about whether their impact persists over time or extends beyond education to include workforce development. Moreover, these programs are far more common in North America, and most of the available evidence comes from that context. Italy also offers some examples of these interventions carried out at local scale (e.g., PERCORSI, PUOI, WILL, WILL-TO). Evidence from the ACHAB randomized controlled trial shows that Percorsi, a matched savings program run by Fondazione Ufficio Pio, has had a positive impact on students’ college enrolment and persistence.

The project

This project extends and expands the ACHAB evaluation to investigate whether Percorsi increases actual university completion and how it affects workforce development during and after university years. The analysis, carried out in collaboration with ASVAPP, involves 1,451 individuals whose educational and work trajectories are tracked for up to 10 years after randomization, using administrative data on labor force participation (i.e., Comunicazioni Obbligatorie) from the Piemonte region and university records from Piemonte.

Results

The analysis is ongoing.