Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/51475 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 617
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department, Washington, DC
Abstract: 
This study describes how minority enrollment probabilities respond to changes in admission policies from affirmative-action to merit-only programs and then to percentage plans when the demographic composition of the potential pool of applicants is also shifting. It takes advantage of admission policy changes that occurred in the state of Texas with the Hopwood and HB588 decisions and of a unique administrative dataset that includes applications, admissions, and enrollments for three public universities of different selectivity levels. The findings suggest that the elimination of affirmative action and the introduction of the Top 10% plan had differential effects on minority enrollment probabilities as well as on application behavior depending on the selectivity level of the postsecondary institution. In particular, Hopwood is related to shifts in minority enrollments from selective institutions to less selective ones as the cascading hypothesis predicts. And although the Top 10% plan seems to have helped increased minority enrollment probabilities at the selective college as the upgrading hypothesis predicts, once the increases in minority shares among highschool graduates are taken into account, we find that the Top 10% plan can no longer be related to improvements in minority representation at selective universities.
Subjects: 
college enrollments
admission policies
minorities
JEL: 
I28
I23
J11
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
216.62 kB





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