ABSTRACT

Over the past three decades, political candidates and elected policymakers have advanced a wide variety of publicly funded tuition-subsidy programs to improve college access and -affordability. These college-aid programs employ different subsidy instruments, target different types of students, draw from different funding sources, and come with different strings attached. This study assesses Americans’ preferences over the multidimensional design of such higher education subsidies using a conjoint survey experiment with randomized policy proposals that vary in their subsidy instruments, target populations, eligibility requirements, and funding arrangements. The results suggest that fiscal tradeoffs loom large in Americans’ support for higher education programs, but elements of subsidy design matter as well: respondents (particularly Republicans) prefer aid packaged as tax credits; strongly means-tested programs receive greater support than broader, income-based aid (an effect driven by Democrats); and subsidies targeted to community college students enjoy substantial, bipartisan support. The study’s results shed light on differences in extant tuition-subsidy programs’ popular support and provide empirical grounding for debates over the prudent design of college aid by estimating tradeoffs that programs confront between efficiently targeting marginal students and securing broad popular support.

摘要

Over the past three decades, political candidates and elected policymakers have advanced a wide variety of publicly funded tuition-subsidy programs to improve college access and -affordability. 这些大学资助计划采用不同的资助工具，针对不同类型的学生，从不同的资金来源中提取，并附带不同的条件。本研究使用联合调查实验评估美国人对此类高等教育补贴多维设计的偏好，其中随机政策建议在补贴工具、目标人群、资格要求和资金安排方面各不相同。结果表明，财政权衡在美国人对高等教育项目的支持中显得尤为重要，但补贴设计的要素也很重要：受访者（尤其是共和党人）更喜欢将援助打包为税收抵免；与更广泛的以收入为基础的援助相比，经过严格经济状况调查的计划获得了更大的支持（由民主党推动）；针对社区大学生的补贴得到了两党的大力支持。该研究的结果揭示了现有学费补贴计划的民众支持的差异，并通过估计计划在有效瞄准边缘学生和获得广泛的民众支持之间面临的权衡，为关于大学资助审慎设计的辩论提供经验基础。