Quality Matters: Assessing the Impact of Attending More Selective Institutions on College Completion Rates of Minorities

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of attending different categories of selective institutions on students' college completion. Specifically, it explores differences in the impact that selectivity of an institution has by race and ethnicity. The analysis accounts for the impact of individual and institutional characteristics and corrects for omitted variables with proxies for student motivation. The results suggest that students who attend the most selective institutions and highly selective institutions, as opposed to non-selective ones, are more likely to complete a bachelor's degree. This result holds for African American and Hispanic students. After correcting for the problem of sorting of students into specific types of institutions, the results of the models suggest that the coefficient of selective institutions might have a small upward bias. The positive effect of selective institutions on attainment suggests that they have the potential to increase the graduation rates of minorities while narrowing the persistent college completion gap.

Are Students of Color More Likely to Graduate From College if They Attend More Selective Institutions?

“…The second, more recent group of studies is composed of quasiexperimental stud ies that have used different methodological strat egies to correct for the sorting problem (Alon & Tienda, 2005;Bowen et al, 2009;Kane, 1998;Light & Strayer, 2000;M. C. Long, 2008;Melguizo, 2003Melguizo, , 2008. The two groups of studies are des cribed below.…”

“…A number of studies have explored the effect of college quality or selectivity on college com pletion using different quasiexperimental methodological strategies to address the sort ing problem (Alon & Tienda, 2005;Dale & Krueger, 2002;Kane, 1998;Light & Strayer, 2000;Long, 2008;Melguizo, 2003Melguizo, , 2008. Kane (1998) used the High School and Beyond class of 1982 (HS&B/So) and controlled for observed characteristics of students (i.e., par ticipating in honors program and school gov ernment).…”

“…Therefore, trying to isolate the effect of quality or selectivity on baccalaureate attainment is dif ficult because betterprepared students attend more selective institutions (Hoxby, 1997). A num ber of studies have attempted to control for issues of selection to estimate the effect of quality or selectivity on baccalaureate attainment (Alon & Tienda, 2005;Dale & Krueger, 2002;Light & Strayer, 2000; M. C. Long, 2008;Melguizo, 2008). The results of these studies are mixed, but the most recent ones suggest that there is a posi tive and significant effect of quality or selectivity on baccalaureate attainment.…”

“…Previous studies have mostly used different cohorts of students from the longitudinal studies of the National Center for Education Statistics (Alon & Tienda, 2005;Kane, 1998;Melguizo, 2003Melguizo, , 2008. These data sets have good measures for school academic preparation and attainment, and even though they include some other psycho logical and behavioral variables such as proxies for student motivation, most of the studies refer enced above have not used them.…”

Board # 111 : Using High School Transcript Data and Diagnostic Information to Fine-Tune Placement Policy and Tailor Instruction in Developmental Math

“…However, studies of community college students reveal that nearly two-thirds of incoming students take one or more semesters of below college-level math coursework and fewer than one-third of these go on to complete developmental math sequences (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010). This may explain why low-income students and racial minority students, who are more likely to start at a community college (Carnevale & Strohl, 2010), have lower degree attainment rates than their counterparts at four-year colleges (Aud, Fox, & KewalRemani, 2010;Bowen, Chingos & McPherson, 2009;Melguizo, 2008).…”