Locked Up Means Locked Out: The Effects of the War on Drugs on Black Male Students' College Enrollment

• In Event: 54.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

While research documents that rates of college access and completion have increased during the past several decades, the trend data also reveal differences by race and gender. My dissertation seeks to explore one possible reason why college enrollment and graduation for Black men has grown at slower rates than for other groups. I explore whether the disproportionate increase in incarceration of Black males for drug possessions and manufacture increased gaps in college enrollment rates by race and gender over two time periods- after the passage of the Anti-Drug Act from 1986 -1993 and after the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act from 1994 - 2014. I propose to use a differences-in-difference-in-differences strategy that will exploit both the federal law introductions and variation in state laws with regards to penalties and amount of marijuana that triggers penalties for marijuana possession and distribution.

Author

• Tolani Britton, Harvard University