The Impacts of Fare-Free Bus Programs on Educational Outcomes of K–12 Students

With the increasing difficulty in providing student transportation, school districts have increased their collaboration with public transit providers to offer access to public transportation through free or reduced-fare programs. One such program was implemented in Florida, allowing any K–12 student in Leon County to ride the bus for free at any time to any destination. This paper applies the synthetic control method to estimate the impact of this program on school attendance and chronic absenteeism. Surprisingly, our results show negative impacts on both attendance and absenteeism outcomes, highlighting the potential unintended consequences of programs with no restriction on student ridership.