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This article uses four data sets to assess changes in the relative weights of test- and performance-based merit criteria on college enrollment during the 1980s and 1990s and considers their significance for affirmative action. Our results support the “shifting meritocracy” hypothesis, revealed by selective postsecondary institutions' increased reliance on test scores to screen students. This shift has made it difficult for institutions to achieve diversity without giving minorities a “boost” through race-sensitive preferences. Statistical simulations that equalize, hold constant, or exclude test scores or class rank from the admission decision illustrate that reliance on performance-based criteria is highly compatible with achieving institutional diversity and does not lower graduation rates. Evidence from a natural experiment in Texas after the implementation of the “top 10 percent” law supports this conclusion. The apparent tension between merit and diversity exists only when merit is narrowly defined by test scores.

This article evaluates the “mismatch” hypothesis, advocated by opponents of affirmative action, which predicts lower graduation rates for minority students who attend selective postsecondary institutions than for those who attend colleges and universities where their academic credentials are better matched to the institutional average. Using two nationally representative longitudinal surveys and a unique survey of students who were enrolled at selective and highly selective institutions, the authors tested the mismatch hypothesis by implementing a robust methodology that jointly considered enrollment in and graduation from selective institutions as interrelated outcomes. The findings do not support the “mismatch” hypothesis for black and Hispanic (as well as white and Asian) students who attended college during 1980s and early 1990s.

Abstract-This paper examines the effects of work experience acquired while youth were in high school (and college) on young men's wage rates. Previous studies have found sizeable and persistent rates of return to working while enrolled in school, especially high school, on subsequent wage growth. We evaluate the extent to which these estimates represent causal effects by assessing the robustness of prior findings to controls for unobserved heterogeneity and sample selectivity. We explore moregeneral econometric methods for dealing with the dynamic of selection and apply them to data on young men from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). We find that the estimated returns to working while in high school or college are dramatically diminished in magnitude and are not statistically significant when one applies dynamic selection methods.

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