Estimating the Eects of Dormitory Living on Student Performance

Many large universities require freshman to live in dormitories on the basis that living on campus leads to better classroom performance and lower drop out incidence. Large universities also provide a number of academic services in dormitories such as tutoring and student organizations that encourage an environment condusive to learn- ing. A survey was administered to college students at a large state school to determine what impact dormitory living has on student performance. We use a handful of instru- mental variable strategies to account for the possibly endogenous decision to live on campus. We nd a robust result across model specications and estimation techniques that on average, living on campus increases GPA by between 0.19 to 0.97. That is, the estimate for the degree of improvement to student performance caused by living on campus ranges between one-fth to one full letter grade.