In Simple Words
Think of a luxury sports club that refuses to accept public fitness vouchers because accepting them would force the club to lower its membership fees and crowd its facilities. Consequently, public vouchers are accepted mainly by budget and mid-tier private clubs catering to cost-conscious families.
Private secondary schools
- Accepted vouchers
- Lower tuition fees
- Did not accept vouchers
- Higher tuition fees
Descriptive comparison. Participating schools also served poorer families; the study does not isolate a causal effect of joining the scheme.
See source →Research question
Universal secondary voucher programs often fail to integrate low-income students into elite private institutions when those elite schools opt out of accepting public vouchers to maintain high tuition fees and lower student-teacher ratios.
Participants
N = 1,300 private secondary schools serving students in Bogotá, Colombia.
Study Design
Cross-sectional institutional analysis comparing participating and non-participating private secondary schools in the PACES voucher program.
Results
Fewer than 50% of private secondary schools accepted the voucher; non-participating elite schools charged substantially higher tuition and maintained significantly higher teacher-pupil ratios, restricting voucher usage to low-to-middle income private schools.
Takeaway
Account for institutional opt-out decisions among elite private schools when modeling the socio-economic integration effects of secondary voucher programs.