Public Benefits Are a Hidden Engine of College Completion

This RAND commentary draws on nearly 30 years of longitudinal data to show that public benefits — particularly SNAP and the EITC — significantly increase the likelihood that low-income young adults enroll in and complete post-secondary education. Young adults who received SNAP were 63% more likely to enroll in college the following year, and each additional year of EITC receipt while enrolled was associated with 40% higher odds of graduating. The authors argue that benefit program rules should be redesigned to treat education and employment as complementary paths to self-sufficiency rather than competing ones.