Estimating the Effects of Dormitory Living on Student Performance

Pedro de Araujo () and James Murray ()
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Pedro de Araujo: Colorado College
James Murray: University of Wisconsin, La Crosse

No 2010-002, CAEPR Working Papers from Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington

Abstract: 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 learning. 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 instrumental variable strategies to account for the possibly endogenous decision to live on campus. We find a robust result across model specifications 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-fifth to one full letter grade.

Keywords: Student performance; dormitory; cross-section analysis; regression; instrumental variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 C21 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2010-02
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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