ERIC Number: EJ1098861
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0307-5079
EISSN: N/A
Grants in Italian University: A Look at the Heterogeneity of Their Impact on Students' Performances
Agasisti, Tommaso; Murtinu, Samuele
Studies in Higher Education, v41 n6 p1106-1132 2016
In this paper, we estimate the effect of receiving financial aid for a cohort of students who enrolled at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in the year 2007/2008, through a propensity score matching approach. Using administrative data about these students for four years, the impact of the financial aid on several dimensions of academic performance was evaluated: formative credits obtained after one year, dropout probability in the first and second year, graduation in the legal duration of the course, and graduation after four years. Overall, a positive and statistically significant effect of the grant is found and this finding is stable across several robustness checks. Exploring the heterogeneity of this effect, it is demonstrated that the effect is higher for immigrants, Italians who moved from another region for studying, and students attending an engineering course. Evidence that unobservable factors (such as students' own intrinsic academic motivation) account for an important part of the estimated impact of the financial aid is also found.
Descriptors: Grants, Higher Education, Academic Achievement, Foreign Countries, Dropouts, Probability, Student Financial Aid, Graduation, Graduation Rate, Statistical Analysis, Control Groups, Regression (Statistics), Cohort Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A