Skip to main content
Log in

Does Student Effort Respond to Incentives? Evidence from a Guaranteed College Admissions Program

  • Published:
Research in Higher Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of guaranteed college admission on student effort and achievement. In 1997, Texas enacted the “Top Ten Percent” law, which guarantees admission to any public college for students in the top ten percent of their high school class. In practice, eligible students become aware of their admission status at the end of their junior year in high school—more than 1 year prior to attending college. We use data from a large, urban school district and regression discontinuity methods to test for effects on effort. Our preferred estimates show that students who barely qualify for the admissions guarantee earn marginally lower grades and take fewer advanced courses in their senior year compared to students who do not qualify for guaranteed admission and learn their status in the final senior year term. We find qualitatively similar results when limiting our sample to finer bandwidths, although the estimates are imprecise.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Students can also increase their effort to better prepare for college; however, our study’s findings suggest this not to be the case.

  2. Even admissions offers granted through “early decisions” go unannounced until December, nearly halfway through the school year (Avery et al. 2004). However, while guaranteed admission is a hallmark of the Texas “Top Ten Percent” Plan, it should not be confused with early admission programs.

  3. Beginning with the high school class of 2011, the state placed limits on the number of students that can be admitted to the University of Texas at Austin under the percent plan. However, this policy change falls outside of our study period.

  4. Both University of Texas–Austin and Texas A&M University-College Station are considered flagship universities in the state and ranked “highly competitive” by Barron’s. In this paper, we use the terms “flagship” and “selective college” interchangeably.

  5. To qualify for guaranteed admission, students must apply to a Texas public college and take a college entrance exam such as the SAT, although student performance on entrance exams is disregarded under guaranteed admissions.

  6. We also estimate findings using samples generated by Imbens and Kalyanaraman (2012) bandwidths, but the results are very imprecise. They are available upon request.

  7. As our sample is identical to that in DMM, readers are referred to their Table 2.

  8. See DMM for greater detail on the effect of guaranteed admission on college choice. It is important to bear in mind that students enrolling in private colleges typically become aware of their admission decisions in the second semester of their senior year. Therefore, it is unlikely that any reductions in senior effort can be attributed to private colleges.

  9. Students with strong preferences for private or out-of-state schools, as well as those competitive at the highest-selectivity schools nationwide, may remain highly motivated, and certain scholarships or awards may require a high GPA at time of graduation. However, many students are likely to consider the remainder of high school a formality.

  10. These results are robust to analysis by underrepresented minority status, free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, and college-sending rate of the student’s high school. Results of subgroup analyses are available upon request.

  11. Moral hazard is likely to be a larger issue among students who are ex ante interested in attending college; unfortunately, we are unable to identify these students prior to 12th grade.

  12. Personal communication with administrators at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University-College Station suggest they are unlikely to rescind admission offers for poor academic performance during high school senior year.

References

  • Avery, C., Fairbanks, A., & Zeckhauser, R. (2004). The early admissions game: joining the elite. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clinedinst, M., Hawkins, D. A. (2008). “State of College Admission”. National Association of College Admission Counseling. http://www.nacacnet.org/research/research-data/Documents/soca_2008_web.pdf

  • Daugherty, L., Martorell, P., & McFarlin, I. (2014). “Percent plans, automatic admissions, and college entry”. IZA Journal of Labor Economics, 3, 1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horn, C. L., & Flores, S. M. (2003). Percent plans in college admissions: A comparative analysis of three states experiences. Cambridge, Mass: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ichino, A., & Riphahn, R. (2005). The effect of employment protection on worker effort: A comparison of absenteeism during and after probation, Journal of the European Economic Association, 3(1), 120–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Imbens, G., & Kalyanaraman, K. (2012). Optimal bandwidth choice for the regression discontinuity estimator. Review of Economic Studies, 79(3), 933–959.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Imbens, G. W., & Lemieux, T. (2008). Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice. Journal of Econometrics, 142(2), 615–635.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacob, B. A. (2013). The effect of employment protection on worker effort: Evidence from public schooling. Journal of Labor Economics, 31(4), 727–761.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martorell, P., & McFarlin, I. (2011). Help or hindrance? The effects of college remediation on academic and labor market outcomes. Review of Economics and Statistics, 93(2), 436–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCrary, J. (2008). Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: a density test. Journal of Econometrics, 142(2), 698–714.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Jeff Smith, Brian McCall, Charlie Brown, Kevin Stange, John DiNardo, Paco Martorell, and participants in the Southern Economic Association and Michigan’s Labor seminar for their assistance and feedback. Any errors are our own.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel M. Leeds.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Leeds, D.M., McFarlin, I. & Daugherty, L. Does Student Effort Respond to Incentives? Evidence from a Guaranteed College Admissions Program. Res High Educ 58, 231–243 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-016-9427-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-016-9427-x

Keywords

Navigation