Although evidence on the impact of some of the earliest place-based scholarships has begun to emerge, the rapid proliferation of promise programs largely has preceded empirical evidence of their impact. Place-based promise scholarships are a relatively recent innovation in the space of college access and success. Given the goal of improving the flow of low-income students to and through college, it is imperative to investigate how to effectively intervene and mitigate summer melt. Our results indicate that low-income, college-intending students experience high rates of summer attrition from the college pipeline.
ResultsOur analyses reveal summer melt rates of sizeable magnitude: ranging from 8 to 40 percent. We employ two data sources, a national survey and administrative data from a large metropolitan area, and regression analysis to estimate the prevalence of summer melt. We assess the extent to which this phenomenon-commonly referred to as “summer melt”-is broadly generalizable. Yet, previous research indicates that a sizeable share of low-income students who had paid college deposits reconsidered where, and even whether, to enroll in the months following graduation. College access research has largely overlooked this time period. The object of this study was to examine whether college-intending, low-income high school graduates are particularly susceptible to having their postsecondary education plans change, or even fall apart, during the summer after high school graduation.
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