Society-wide Benefits of DACA

According to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has had a “significant impact” on the educational outcomes of undocumented immigrant youth, including a 15% increase in high school graduation rates, an extra 49,000 Hispanics obtaining a high school diploma, a 45% drop in teenage motherhood, and a 25% increase in college enrollment among Hispanic women.

Researchers from Dartmouth University, Southern Methodist University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found that DACA had a significant impact on adolescents’ schooling, work, and fertility decisions. Their preferred estimates analyzing Hispanics show that DACA led to a 3.3 percentage point (p.p.) increase in the school attendance of 14 to 18-year olds and an 11.4p.p. increase in the high school completion of 19-year olds, relative to a mean of 75%. The results imply that more than 49,000 additional Hispanic youth obtained a high school diploma because of DACA. This large response coupled with the fact that the effects are significantly larger for males, who have an elevated risk of deportation, suggests that teenagers value the benefits of DACA and remain in school to attain eligibility.

The paper implemented a difference-in-differences design by comparing DACA eligible to non-eligible individuals over time to find that DACA had a significant impact on the investment decisions of undocumented youth, suggesting that DACA raised aspirations for education above and beyond qualifying for legal status. It even found that the same individuals who acquire more schooling also work more (at the same time), counter to the typical intuition that these behaviors are mutually exclusive, indicating that the program generated a large boost in productivity

Under the eligibility rules of DACA, applicants had to be enrolled in school, have graduated from high school, have a GED, or be an honorably discharged veteran.

The researchers did warn that the research has yet to undergo peer review or review by the National Bureau of Economic Research’s board of directors.

The paper is available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w24315

3 COMMENTS

  1. “schooling, work, and fertility decisions”???? Why should we care about providing schooling, work and procreation for ungrateful brats that are not supposed to be here on first place?

  2. Now explain WHO pays for illegal aliens education?

    When will politicians learn that when you reward illegal immigration with jobs, drivers licenses, discounts in college tuition, scholarships encourages illegal entry. DACA recipients care about one thing, themselves. They have used billions of taxpayer dollars, American citizens have been victimized by the thousands by illegal aliens. But what matters to illegal aliens is getting as much as they can from any benefits they can get. Remember these “immigrants” have cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and could care less. There is an estimated 800,000 DACA recipients in the US. That is 800,000 jobs American Citizens dont have or will be in competition for. There not all picking strawberries they take great Jobs. Good enough jobs to buy homes put their kids through college. So when you hear of the contributions by illegal aliens paying taxes. Remember that also is at a cost in jobs citizens should have.

    Just some of the costs associated with illegal immigration, we will pass this burden on to our children as has been passed on to us. We’ve been paying this for decades.

    *The CBO (congressional budget off ice) estimates it will cost American taxpayers 26 billion over the next 10years if 1.8 million re legalized.

    *The cost of educating illegal aliens children is staggering. From K-12 it costs taxpayers $122,000 for EACH illegal alien student. This does not include the billions spent on bilingual education for illegal aliens.

    *Currently city, and state officials are appropriating millions of taxpayer dollars for legal fees to to file law suits and in defense of illegal aliens being deported.

    *2012 illegal aliens sent home $62 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. This is why Mexico is getting involved in our politics.

    *30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.Does not include local jails and State Prisons. At $21,000 per year expense per inmate in Federal Prison U do the math.

    *$3Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens, I repeat 3 MILLION a DAY to
    process Illegals in the Criminal justice system.

    *$2.2Billion dollars ayear is spent on is spent on food assistance programs such as SNAP (food stamps) WIC, & free school lunches.All can be found on google.

  3. Neither logic, compassion, scientific research evidence, nor God will ever convince morons that Dreamers are people and that they hold solid promise for a significant part of the future of America.

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