Impact of a national tuition scholarship policy on admissions and enrollment at university undergraduate programs.

In 2016, the Chilean Government began to grant full tuition scholarships to college students from the lowest fifty percent income households. I examine whether this meant that eligible undergraduate programs were able to recruit more low-income high-achieving students and whether there were any administrative responses in their admissions process. Since selection to a college program is based solely on an applicant’s overall admission score, I use a difference-in-differences design to compare eligible and non-eligible undergraduate programs at participating and non-participating universities. Enrollment by students from public high schools at treated undergraduate programs grew by 1.3 percentage points and overall entrance scores grew by .12 standard deviations at treated programs. These findings provide partial support for the notion that the scholarship policy improved access for low-income high-achieving students. I also find significant administrative responses, regarding tuition costs, cohort sizes and the weights assigned to factors that make up the overall entrance score.