The Consequences of Academic Match between Students and Colleges

Eleanor Dillon and Jeffrey Smith

No 9080, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We consider the effects of student ability, college quality, and the interaction between the two on academic outcomes and future earnings. Both ability and college quality strongly improve outcomes and earnings. We find little evidence to support the "mismatch" hypothesis that college quality and ability interact in substantively important ways. All students benefit from attending higher quality colleges. Our estimates imply that resorting students to eliminate mismatch, without changing the capacity of any colleges, would raise expected graduation rates by only 0.6 percentage points and mean earnings by $400 per year. The substantial gains for students who move to higher quality colleges under this reshuffling roughly cancel out the losses of students who move down.

Keywords: college quality; mismatch (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2015-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: Journal of Human Resources, 2020, 55(3), 768-808.

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Consequences of Academic Match between Students and Colleges (2020)
Working Paper: The Consequences of Academic Match between Students and Colleges (2018)
Working Paper: The Consequences of Academic Match between Students and Colleges (2018)
Working Paper: The Consequences of Academic Match between Students and Colleges (2017)
Working Paper: The consequences of academic match between students and colleges (2016)
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