They Are Not All the Same: Estimating and Explaining the Effect of Institutions on Their Students' Probability of Graduation

• In Event: 16.058 - Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: 16.058-11 - The Significance of Institutional Optics and Actions in the Postsecondary Pipeline

Abstract

A tremendous amount of research has examined the individual characteristics that make more likely to enroll in and graduate from a four-year college: little research has examined the impact that colleges themselves have on the graduation rates of the students they enroll. In this paper, we first present a method for estimating this college effect on graduation rate, estimating it as the difference between the observed and predicted graduation rates of students who attend an individual school. We present results that suggest that this college effect on graduation is largely unrelated to the institutional characteristics most commonly used in higher education research.

Authors

• Matthew Holsapple, Spencer Foundation

• Thomas Kelley-Kemple, CCSR

• David Wilson Johnson, University of Chicago

• Melissa R. Roderick, University of Chicago