{"id":10587,"date":"2012-07-16T13:51:28","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T17:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=10587"},"modified":"2012-07-16T19:32:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T23:32:00","slug":"family-home-values-predict-quality-of-college-attended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/07\/16\/family-home-values-predict-quality-of-college-attended\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Property Values Predict Quality Of Colleges Attended"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>How much does the value of your parents\u2019 home predict where you go to college? More than one might think, economist Michael Lovenheim argues in a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Until recently, mainstream assumptions gave a lot of credence to the notion that students need a lifetime of resources to be prepared for college: high expectations from family and teachers, extra-curricular activities, engaging dinner conversations, you know the drill. It turns out that while those issues may play a part in the very big picture, a family\u2019s short-term liquid assets have a lot more influence on college choices than economists once believed.<\/p>\n

Specifically, economist Michael Lovenheim has found that the value of a student\u2019s family home during her high school years directly correlates to the quality of the institution she attends in the following years.<\/p>\n

In a poor housing market, Lovenheim says, \u201cthese families think: \u2018I can\u2019t afford to go here, so we won\u2019t apply.\u2019\u201d But during the housing boom, students from identical backgrounds applied to, were accepted, and attended higher-tier schools.\u00a0 \u201cFor every $10,000 increase in a family\u2019s housing wealth in the four years prior to a kid turning 18, it increases the likelihood of going to a flagship public university by 2 percent, and it decreases the likelihood of attending a community college by 1.6 percent,\u201d Lovenheim explains. The same effect was found between students choosing between no post- secondary schooling and community college.<\/p>\n

This information is important in New Hampshire for a few reasons.\u00a0 As you can see in the graph below, the median purchase price of primary homes in New Hampshire fell 17.2 percent in the last six years, with Coos and Merrimack counties seeing a dip above 20 percent.\u00a0 While more homes may be selling, the purchase price of those homes has not increased in the last two years.\u00a0 As the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority adopts policies like this one<\/a> to encourage homeownership, they are also investing in the educational future of the states\u2019 students.\u00a0 But if banks continue to make it difficult for families to leverage their homes to pay for college, students may continue to choose lower tier schools than they are qualified to attend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lovenheim\u2019s research also suggests that traditional scholarships and financial aid are coming to students too late. \u00a0By the time students find out about financial aid and scholarship awards, they’ve already ruled out better and more expensive schools.\u00a0 If folks in New Hampshire really want to encourage young people to get a good education and stay in the state, Lovenheim says, we might look to states like Florida and Georgia, where the state university guarantees a free-ride to all in-state students whose GPA is above a certain threshold.<\/p>\n

Read more about Lovenheim’s research<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How much does the value of your parents\u2019 home predict where you go to college? More than one might think, economist Michael Lovenheim argues in a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economics. Until recently, mainstream assumptions gave a lot of credence to the notion that students need a lifetime of resources to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":10648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[325,249,343,194,493,520,528],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}