Covid-19 prevalence and empty college seats

Sean Mulholland

Applied Economics, 2021, vol. 53, issue 15, 1716-1728

Abstract: Using the National Association for College Admission Counselling’s annual list of colleges with open seats and Covid-19 cases and deaths at the county level, this paper provides a first look at how Covid-19 has altered enrolment at four-year colleges. I find that a one standard deviation increase in deaths per 100,000 is associated with a 61% increase in the probability that a school reports available seats, housing, and aid for first-year students. For a one standard deviation increase in cases per 100,000, schools are 53% more likely to report openings. For a one standard deviation increase in the growth rate of deaths and cases, schools are 45 and 56%, respectively, more likely to report openings. These openings are not driven by the fact that many Covid-19 hot spots in March and April of 2020 are also home to schools with higher tuition and fees, a high share of out-of-state or international students, and more progressive political leanings.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2020.1841884 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:15:p:1716-1728

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2020.1841884

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().