How Far Can Inclusion Go? The Long-term Impacts of Preferential College Admissions
Michela Carlana,
Enrico Miglino and
Michela M. Tincani
No 32525, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Abstract:
Affirmative action and preferential admission policies play a crucial role in fostering social mobility by bolstering the prospects of disadvantaged groups. In this paper, we analyze the long-term effects of a Chilean policy (PACE) that targets students in underprivileged schools, offering guaranteed admission to selective colleges to those graduating in the top 15 percent of their high school class. Leveraging both the randomized expansion of PACE and the admission discontinuity, our analysis reveals that PACE yields positive labor market effects for the average targeted student, especially women, driven by the selectivity of the attended colleges. However, for marginally eligible students, higher dropout rates and negative labor market outcomes emerge, suggesting PACE may induce a mismatch between their skills and the academic rigor of selective programs. Finally, we find that students in the bottom 85 percent of their schools experience positive effects on labor market outcomes. We identify equilibrium effects on local labor markets as a potential mechanism. The results suggest that there is a limit to how far preferential admissions can go while delivering on their promises.
JEL-codes: I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-des, nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
Note: ED LS
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32525.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32525
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32525
The price is Paper copy available by mail.
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().