Estimating the Effect of Financial Aid Offers on College Enrollment: A Regression–Discontinuity Approach*
利用东海岸某大学助学金分配规则中的断点，通过断点回归方法估计助学金对学生入学决策的影响，解决了内生性问题，证实助学金是吸引学生的有效工具。
An important problem faced by colleges and universities, that of evaluating the effect of their financial aid offers on student enrollment decisions, is complicated by the likely endogeneity of the aid offer variable in a student enrollment equation. This article shows how discontinuities in an East Coast college's aid assignment rule can be exploited to obtain credible estimates of the aid effect without having to rely on arbitrary exclusion restrictions and functional form assumptions. Semiparametric estimates based on a regression–discontinuity (RD) approach affirm the importance of financial aid as an effective instrument in competing with other colleges for students.