The Annual Meeting of the SKILS Conference, which took place from January 12th to 14th in Flims Laax, Switzerland, gathered over 40 experts in labor economics from around the world.
Andrés Barrios presented his paper titled “Closing Gaps in Higher Education Trajectories: Direct and Indirect Effects of Information and Personalized Counseling.” This project uses a large-scale RCT to evaluate, in a unified setting—Chile—a low-touch and a high-touch intervention designed to help high school seniors make informed decisions about their postsecondary education trajectories.
“The conference also provided various opportunities for informal interactions with participants,” explained Barrios. “These spaces are incredibly valuable as they allow you to get to know participants in greater depth and, at the same time, receive more detailed feedback on your work. It was undoubtedly a very enriching experience.”
In alignment with prior studies, the research observes that providing information alone enhances students’ understanding of the higher education system but has no significant effect on their likelihood of applying to or enrolling in college. Conversely, offering both information and mentoring increases students’ probability of registering for and taking the college admission exam by 12.8 percentage points, applying for financial aid by 10.3 percentage points, and enrolling in higher education by 8 percentage points.
Professor Barrios added that the conference provided a unique opportunity “to discuss advances in this field and share insights from recent studies.” Among the participants at the workshop was the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics laureate, Joshua Angrist.
