Learning Accounts

Evidence Rating:

Near Top Tier

Highlights

Program:

A program in New Brunswick, Canada that provided up to $8,400 in financial aid for post-secondary education to low-income 10^th grade students, conditioned on their meeting certain benchmarks (i.e., completion of 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th grade).
Evaluation Methods:

A large, well-conducted randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a sample of 1,145 low-income 10^th graders.
Key Findings:

Over the 10 years following random assignment, the program produced a 6.5 percentage point increase in the high school graduation rate, and 6.8 percentage point increase in the rate of postsecondary completion.
Other:

A study limitation is that it was conducted in a single Canadian province. A replication RCT, conducted in another jurisdiction, would be valuable to hopefully confirm the sizable effects found in this study and establish that they generalize to other settings where the program might be implemented.

Learning Accounts was a demonstration program in New Brunswick, Canada that provided up to approximately $8,400 in conditional financial aid for post-secondary education to low-income 10^th grade students (i.e., students with a family income below the New Brunswick median). The aid did not have to be re-paid provided the student was accepted into a recognized post-secondary program in Canada. The program deposited money in students’ accounts as they met certain benchmarks – approximately $2,100 for completing 10th grade, $2,100 for completing 11^th grade, and $4,200 for graduating from high school. All monetary amounts in this summary are 2019 US dollars. [1]

A description of the program is linked here (page 8). The cost of delivering Learning Accounts as implemented in the study described below was approximately $3,300 per student. [2]

To see our full evidence summary:

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Top Tier

Programs shown in well-conducted RCTs, carried out in typical community settings, to produce sizable, sustained effects on important outcomes. Top Tier evidence includes a requirement for replication – specifically, the demonstration of such effects in two or more RCTs conducted in different implementation sites, or, alternatively, in one large multi-site RCT. Such evidence provides confidence that the program would produce important effects if implemented faithfully in settings and populations similar to those in the original studies.

Near Top Tier

Programs shown to meet almost all elements of the Top Tier standard, and which only need one additional step to qualify. This category primarily includes programs that meet all elements of the Top Tier standard in a single study site, but need a replication RCT to confirm the initial findings and establish that they generalize to other sites. This is best viewed as tentative evidence that the program would produce important effects if implemented faithfully in settings and populations similar to those in the original study.

Suggestive Tier

Programs that have been evaluated in one or more well-conducted RCTs (or studies that closely approximate random assignment) and found to produce sizable positive effects, but whose evidence is limited by only short-term follow-up, effects that fall short of statistical significance, or other factors. Such evidence suggests the program may be an especially strong candidate for further research, but does not yet provide confidence that the program would produce important effects if implemented in new settings.

References

[1] These calculations are based on an exchange rate of $1.15 Canadian dollars to $1 U.S. dollars, which was the median exchange rate for 2009, the year the study began. We then adjusted for U.S. inflation since 2009 using the Consumer Price Index.

[2] This is the average amount of financial aid that the program provided to students in the Learning Accounts group in the study we summarize here. It does not include the up-front cost of setting up specialized systems for payment, but on a per-student basis these costs would be minimal in an ongoing program implemented at scale by a student financial aid system.

Ford, Reuben, Taylor Shek-wai Hui, and Isaac Kwakye. “Future to Discover: Seventh Year Post-secondary Impacts Report.” Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, December 2018.

Hui, Taylor Shek-wai and Reuben Ford. “Education and Labour Market Impacts of the Future to Discover Project: Technical Report.” Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2018.

Ford, Reuben and Isaac Kwakye. “Future to Discover: Sixth Year Post-secondary Impacts Report.” Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, July 2016.

Ford, Reuben and Isaac Kwakye. “Future to Discover: Sixth Year Post-secondary Impacts Report (revised).” Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, March 2016.

Ford, Reuben, Douwere Grekou, Isaac Kwakye, and Claudia Nicholson. “Future to Discover: Fourth Year Post-secondary Impacts Report.” Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, August 2014.

Ford, Reuben, Marc Frenette, Claudia Nicholson, Isaac Kwakye, Taylor Shek-wai Hui, Judith Hutchison, Sabina Dobrer, Heather Smith Fowler, and Sophie Hébert. “Future to Discover: Post-Secondary Impacts Report.” Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, October 2012.

Currie, Sheila, Judith Hutchison, Reuben Ford, Isaac Kwakye, Doug Tattrie. “Future to Discover Pilot Project: Early Implementation Report.” Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, October 2007.

Highlights

Program:

Evaluation Methods:

Key Findings:

Other:

References

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