Lindsay Page, Associate Professor of Research Methodology at the University of Pittsburgh
Can text-based nudges improve college-going outcomes at scale? Promising results, limitations and implications for scale
Students from low-income backgrounds face substantial barriers to college entry and success. Prior research demonstrates that interventions focused on providing students with information about college and financial aid and access to assistance can increase college enrollment (e.g., Bettinger et al, 2012; Hoxby and Turner, 2013). Further, text messaging has been shown to be a cost-effective approach to increase students’ college and financial literacy and to connect them to professional support when they need help (Castleman & Page, 2015, 2016). Nevertheless, a more recent set of studies highlights the limitations of low-touch interventions for improving college-going outcomes at scale (e.g., Bird et al, 2019; Oreopoulos & Petronijevic, 2019). In this talk, I will provide an overview of my program of research related to text-based outreach and guidance to support students to and through college. I will highlight results from experimental interventions delivered by the K-12 and postsecondary sectors to improve students’ success with college search and application tasks as well as college access and persistence. I will conclude with implications for whether and under what conditions light-touch outreach, via text and other channels, may contribute to improving college outcomes at scale.