OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
We study the impact of financial aid on upward mobility. An unprecedented financial aid reform in Colombia dramatically increased the enrollment of academically successful students of low socioeconomic status (SES) in high-quality universities. We leverage the policy’s stringent eligibility criteria and population-wide administrative microdata, using regression discontinuity (RD) and difference-in-difference (DD) methodologies to estimate causal effects on later-life educational and labor-market outcomes. The program notably boosted attendance of low-SES high-achievers at colleges with high value-added, increasing their returns to ability. Low-SES students are more likely to obtain bachelor’s degrees from these colleges, especially in STEM fields, and they achieve higher scores in the college graduation exam. Nine years later, their earnings are 18 log points higher, with a greater likelihood of being in the top 1%, reflecting increased upper-tail mobility. The policy successfully narrowed socioeconomic gaps in college quality, attainment, skill development, earnings, and the returns to ability.
