The $6 Envelope That Gets Low-Income Kids Into College

Today in National Journal’s “The Next Economy,” Sophie Quinton highlights findings from The Hamilton Project’s recent discussion paper, “Informing Students about Their College Options: A Proposal for Broadening the Expanding College Opportunities Project.” In the paper, Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University and Sarah Turner of the University of Virginia present a strategy for improving college outcomes for high-achieving, low-income students. Building on previous research showing that most high-achieving, low-income students do not even apply to selective colleges, Hoxby and Turner propose expanding a recently piloted informational intervention called the Expanding College Opportunities (ECO) Project. Quinton quotes Hoxby, who noted at The Hamilton Project’s recent forum on expanding college opportunity that, "It turns out that these interventions are just as effective or more effective than a lot of the in-person interventions that cost at least 100 times as much, and sometimes 300 or 400 times as much." To read the full piece, click here.