What are we doing?

We bring together social scientists and computer scientists, using our economics of education knowledge, causal inference spirits, policy-relevant minds, and big data methods, to explore effective approaches to improve low-income students' college access and choices.

Our first five-year plan:

  1. Year 1 (2016): Examine what works in centralized admissions in China
  2. Year 2 (2017): Scale up 1-on-1 advising using incentive policies and machine learning algorithms
  3. Year 3 (2018): Increase program take-up for the online system
  4. Year 4 (2019): Artificial intelligence
  5. Year 5 (2020): Expand to all low-income students in China

Why?

There is rapidly growing literature on the significant impacts of information provision and individualized assistance on increasing college opportunity for low-income students the United States. But little is known about the effectiveness of these interventions in other contexts.

We aim to provide novel experimental evidence on what works in a centralized admissions system in China, and provide informational interventions and assistance to improve poor students' college opportunities.

Research projects in progress

Updates

Team photos

(Kunming, June 2017)

(Sanya, Jan 2018)

Moments

(A school workshop with more than 1,000 students, Chongqing, 2018)

("I don't know how many poor students are fortunate enough to command a county mayor to file their college applications." - my WeChat post on 2017.06.25 10:30pm after working with Yinduo for our 1-on-1 advising)

("Teacher, your assistance is god's grace for students like me. I trust you." - from our treated student during the 1-on-1 advising)

Life is short. Do something right. × 2018