Recent studies for primary and secondary education find positive effects of the share of females in the classroom on achievement of males and females. This study examines whether these results can be extrapolated to higher education. We conduct an experiment in which the shares of females in...

Colleges’ early decision (ED) admission policies require accepted students to commit to attend the school without comparing outside options. With data from two liberal arts schools we find evidence that students with higher willingness and ability to pay and lower measured ability levels are...

Using detailed individual-level data from public universities in the state of Ohio, I estimate the effect of various institutional expenditures on the probability of graduating from college. Using a competing risks regression framework, I find differential impacts of expenditure categories...

We investigate how undergraduates’ financial aid packages affect their subsequent donative behavior as alumni. We analyze micro data on alumni giving at an anonymous research university, and focus on three types of financial aid, scholarships, loans, and campus jobs. Consistent with the view...

Women are less likely than men to earn degrees from high quality post-baccalaureate programs, and this tendency has been growing over time. I show that, aside from the biomedical sciences, this cannot be explained by changes in the type of program where women tend to earn degrees. Instead,...

Research has shown that attending a relatively selective four-year college over a less selective alternative is positively related to bachelor's degree completion. This paper revisits that question with a novel dataset of over 11,000 sets of twins in the United States and information on colleges...

We examine the degree to which measures of student tastes and motivations are associated with the outcomes of three important higher education decisions and subsequent annual earnings. Within a sample of nearly 9000 students from the Baccalaureate and Beyond, we find that these measures are...

This study uses a fixed effects panel data framework to examine the effects of cohort crowding and other variables on nonresident enrollment at four-year public colleges and universities. The results suggest that larger cohorts of resident students crowd out nonresident students at flagship...

We investigate how much value college enrollment adds to students’ critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills, and the role college inputs play in developing these competencies, using data from a 2009 collegiate assessment pilot study in Colombia. Relative to observationally...

This paper estimates the returns to university selectivity in the UK using administrative data on applications and admissions to university, linked to a survey of graduates three and a half years after graduation. It compares students who indicated preferences for, and were conditionally...