Better Late Than Never: Delayed Undergraduate Enrollment and Financial Aid *

We study delayed undergraduate enrollment as a margin for overcoming college financing constraints and its interaction with financial aid. Using data on the United States, we provide new evidence that a quarter of those who enroll in a bachelor's degree delay it by at least a year after high school completion, and that delay is more common among enrollees from poor families or with low skill. We build a model of delayed enrollment with financing constraints that rationalizes these facts. An experiment in which we expand the loan limit reveals that the resulting increase in immediate enrollment stems mostly from those shifting out of delayed enrollment rather than non-enrollees switching into enrollment.