Hybrid seminar: Studying or moving out? Housing choices and educational careers across the student population

Housing costs are a substantial part of living costs for young individuals who leave their parental homes and go to university.Young individuals from low-income backgrounds are particularly exposed to housing costs. I use machine-learning techniques to derive treatment effects from a reform to student income subsidies in the Netherlands that decreased subsidies for students who move out of their parental homes. I find that the reform led to a substantial decline in enrollment among individuals from low-income backgrounds. The effect is concentrated among individuals that consider entering university from vocational education. The results suggest that housing costs are an important factor in determining educational careers. Additionally, the results demonstrate that there is substantial heterogeneity across different schooling tracks and that evaluating reforms in higher education requires considering students that enter university from nonstandard margins such as vocational education.