The Consequences of Academic Match between Students and Colleges

Abstract

We consider the effects of student ability, college quality, and the interaction between the two on academic outcomes and earnings using data on two cohorts of college enrollees. Student ability and college quality strongly improve degree completion and earnings for all students. We find evidence of meaningful complementarity between student ability and college quality in degree completion at four years and long-term earnings, but not in degree completion at six years or STEM degree completion. This complementarity implies some tradeoff between equity and efficiency for policies that move lower ability students to higher quality colleges. This open access article is distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) and is freely available online at: http://jhr.uwpress.org 1 University of Michigan, particularly Ellen Stuart.The online appendix can be found at

What Levels of Racial Diversity Can Be Achieved with Socioeconomic‐Based Affirmative Action? Evidence from a Simulation Model

“…This mismatch might lead to within-college racial segregation based on academic background or a lower likelihood that URM students admitted under affirmative action will complete college (Arcidiacono, Khan, & Vigdor, 2011). Other studies, however, indicate no significant negative effects of academic mismatch (Bowen & Bok, 1998;Dillon & Smith, 2015). In order to inform this line of research, we use our simulations to assess the extent to which race-and SES-based affirmative action policies might place URM students in colleges where their achievement falls substantially below their peers.…”

Assortative Matching of Tourists and Destinations: Agents or Algorithms?

“…Assortative matching occurs whenever two non-substitutable sets of actors or agents each want to choose partners from the other set, subject to constraints and preferences [1-3]. Well-known examples include choice of marriage partners [1,4,5], academic co-authors [6], or residential addresses [7]; allocation of sportspersons between teams [8,9], employees between employers [10,11], or students between universities [12][13][14]; and reciprocal choice of banks and borrowers [5,15], insurers and insured [15], enterprises and auditors [16], or patients and healthcare providers [17].…”

Closing the Gap: The Effect of a Targeted, Tuition-Free Promise on College Choices of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students

“…8 Higher college quality is associated with higher graduation rates and salaries. Research indicates that at least part of this relationship is causal (Hoekstra 2009;Zimmerman 2014;Dillon and Smith 2018). The University of Michigan has a 91 percent graduation rate (within six years) and an average alumni salary of over $63,000 (within ten years of attendance).…”

“…But even among well-prepared students, there are substantial gaps in college enrollment and the quality of college attended (Hoxby and Avery 2012). Combined with evidence that attending a college of higher quality increases both educational attainment and earnings (Hoekstra 2009;Zimmerman 2014;Dillon and Smith 2018), the under-representation of low-income students at selective colleges likely exacerbates both educational and income inequality. 1 Among high-achieving students, differences in application behavior drive income differences in college quality.…”