Crossing the Finish Line: Financial Aid and the Long-Run Effects of Tertiary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

Policy Context

As primary and secondary schooling have become increasingly universal in low-income countries, expanding access to tertiary education has emerged as a central policy priority, particularly for women. Across sub-Saharan Africa, women’s tertiary enrollment increased fourfold between 1990 and 2018, yet many of these new students come from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. At the University of Zambia, a large share of female students report falling behind on housing payments, skipping meals, and relying on high-interest loans to cover basic expenses.

Financial hardship during college can push women toward risky coping strategies, including transactional sex and costly borrowing, exposing them to heightened risks of pregnancy, HIV, and long-term debt. These pressures may also increase the likelihood of dropout, limiting the potential gains from expanded university access. Despite substantial public spending on tertiary education across the region, there is little causal evidence on whether financial support during college improves educational attainment, health, and long-run economic outcomes. This project addresses this gap by evaluating whether financial aid can help women complete their studies and set them on more stable life trajectories, with potential intergenerational benefits for their future children.

Study Design

The project implements a randomized controlled trial with female undergraduates at the University of Zambia. Approximately 1,000 undergraduate women were recruited, and half were randomly assigned to receive financial aid.

Participants in the treatment group received eight monthly mobile money transfers of 1,000 Kwacha over two academic semesters, roughly equivalent to the cost of monthly housing. To capture short-run impacts, the study conducted biweekly phone surveys, which students completed on their smartphones, enabling high-frequency measurement of financial stress, well-being, and related outcomes during the intervention period.

Beyond these immediate effects, the project places strong emphasis on long-run impacts. The study team is maintaining regular follow-up with participants through surveys conducted every six months, creating a longitudinal panel that tracks educational attainment and transitions into adulthood. This design enables estimation of causal effects of tertiary financial aid on labor market outcomes, fertility, marriage patterns, and child health, contributing rare evidence on the returns to higher education in low-income settings.

Results and Policy Lessons

Short-run surveys capture how monthly transfers affect students’ financial stability and daily living conditions during college. These data document the extent to which financial aid alleviates acute hardship and reduces reliance on risky coping strategies during a critical period of educational investment.

The project is currently in its long-term follow-up phase, with participants surveyed at six-month intervals. This ongoing tracking will generate some of the first causal estimates of how increased access to tertiary education affects employment, income, fertility, marriage, and child outcomes in a very low-income context. By building a rare longitudinal dataset on university-educated women in sub-Saharan Africa, the study aims to inform government decisions about student aid and higher education financing, with implications for both gender equity and economic development.