I am all for research into basic income -- and in fact a big believer. However I take a HUGE issue with reading too much into the viability of the system based upon research done on small sample sizes: "Our idea is to give a basic income to a group of people in the US for a 5 year period"

There is emergent behavior that arises in the economy as a function of the number of people given a stipend or living wage. For profit colleges are the perfect example. If grants are given to a small set of people the scale of demand necessary for such businesses to exist is insufficient. Crank up the number of people and a new market is created that allows for the existence of predatory "for profit" college businesses that take advantage of funds that would have otherwise been allocated properly.