The Hechinger Report - Proof Points: The Limits of Nudging

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By Jill Barshay

Ideally in education, we want to rigorously test pilot projects and roll out successful ones to more and more students. But not everything in education that works in miniature can be scaled up. Text nudging -- sending reminders and tips directly to students on their cellphones -- is a fresh case in point. It seemed like a promising low-cost solution to get more students to attend college but a second wave of studies shows that it’s not working well at scale.

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Key Findings

Three recent studies of text nudging large numbers of students showed no improvement in college enrollment.
Earlier studies were well-designed but smaller. Text nudging can yield real benefits.
Personalized texts from senders who are well known to the recipient may make a difference. Two-way communication can help too.

Lit Review

Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin L. Castleman, Jeffrey T. Denning, Joshua Goodman, Cait Lamberton, Kelly Ochs Rosinger, Nudging at scale: Experimental evidence from FAFSA completion campaigns, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 183, 2021, Pages 105-128.
Gurantz, Oded, Jessica Howell, Mike Hurwitz, Cassandra Larson, Matea Pender, and Brooke White. (2019). Realizing Your College Potential? Impacts of College Board’s RYCP Campaign on Postsecondary Enrollment. (EdWorkingPaper: 19-40). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University.
Castleman, Benjamin L., Denise Deutschlander, and Gabrielle Lohner. (2020). Pushing College Advising Forward: Experimental Evidence on Intensive Advising and College Success. (EdWorkingPaper: 20-326). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University.
Avery et al., 2020 C. Avery, B.L. Castleman, M. Hurwitz, B.T. Long, L.C. Page Digital messaging to improve college enrollment (No. 27897) National Bureau of Economic Research (2020)
Angrist, Noam and Bergman, Peter and Matsheng, Moitshepi, "School’s Out: Experimental Evidence on Limiting Learning Loss Using “Low-Tech” in a Pandemic", National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series 28205, January 2021.
Maya Escueta, Vincent Quan, Andre Joshua Nickow, Philip Oreopoulos, (August 2017) Education Technology: An Evidence-Based Review, J-PAL, NBER Working Paper No. 23744