Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/172224 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 16-262
Publisher: 
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, MI
Abstract: 
Many male and first-generation college-goers struggle in their first year of postsecondary education. Mentoring programs have been touted as a potential solution to help such students acclimate to college life, yet causal evidence on the impact of such programs, and the factors that influence participation in them, is scant. This study leverages a natural experiment in which peer advisors (PAs) were quasi-randomly assigned to first-year university students to show that 1) male students were significantly more likely to voluntarily meet with their assigned PA when the PA was also male and 2) these compliers were significantly more likely to persist into the second year of postsecondary schooling. We find no effect of being assigned to a same-sex PA on female students' use of the PA program, nor do we find any evidence that the PA program affected subsequent academic performance (GPAs).
Subjects: 
higher education
peer advising
mentoring
gender gap
demographic mismatch
retention
JEL: 
I21
I23
I28
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
643.1 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.