American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics
ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)
Race and College Success: Evidence from Missouri
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
(pp. 20–57)
Abstract
Conditional on enrollment, African American students are substantially less likely to graduate from four-year public universities than white students. Using administrative micro-data from Missouri, we decompose the graduation gap into racial differences in four factors: (i) how students sort to universities, (ii) how students sort to initial majors, (iii) high-school quality, and (iv) other preentry skills. Preentry skills explain 65 and 86 percent of the gap for women and men respectively. A small role is found for differential sorting into college, driven by African Americans' disproportionate representation in urban schools and schools at the very bottom of the quality distribution.Citation
Arcidiacono, Peter, and Cory Koedel. 2014. "Race and College Success: Evidence from Missouri." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 6 (3): 20–57. DOI: 10.1257/app.6.3.20Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I23 Higher Education; Research Institutions
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics