IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v29y2010i6p1110-1124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do bans on affirmative action hurt minority students? Evidence from the Texas Top 10% Plan

Author

Listed:
  • Cortes, Kalena E.

Abstract

In light of the recent bans on affirmative action in higher education, this paper provides new evidence on the effects of alternative admissions policies on the persistence and college completion of minority students. I find that the change from affirmative action to the Top 10% Plan in Texas decreased both retention and graduation rates of lower-ranked minority students. Results show that both fall-to-fall freshmen retention and six-year college graduation of second-decile minority students decreased, respectively, by 2.4 and 3.3 percentage points. The effect of the change in admissions policy was slightly larger for minority students in the third and lower deciles: fall-to-fall freshmen retention and six-year college graduation decreased, respectively, by 4.9 and 4.2 percentage points. Moreover, I find no evidence in support of the minority "mismatch" hypothesis. These results suggest that most of the increase in the graduation gap between minorities and non-minorities in Texas, a staggering 90%, was driven by the elimination of affirmative action in the 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Cortes, Kalena E., 2010. "Do bans on affirmative action hurt minority students? Evidence from the Texas Top 10% Plan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1110-1124, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:29:y:2010:i:6:p:1110-1124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272-7757(10)00069-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesse Rothstein & Albert Yoon, 2006. "Mismatch in Law School," Working Papers 29, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Education Research Section..
    2. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 2005. "Would the Elimination of Affirmative Action Affect Highly Qualified Minority Applicants? Evidence from California and Texas," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(3), pages 416-434, April.
    3. Black, Dan A. & Smith, J.A.Jeffrey A., 2004. "How robust is the evidence on the effects of college quality? Evidence from matching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 99-124.
    4. repec:pri:cepsud:123rothstein is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Dee, Thomas S., 2004. "Are there civic returns to education?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1697-1720, August.
    6. Niu, Sunny Xinchun & Tienda, Marta & Cortes, Kalena, 2006. "College selectivity and the Texas top 10% law," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 259-272, June.
    7. Marta Tienda & Kevin T. Leicht & Teresa Sullivan & Michael Maltese & Kim Lloyd, 2003. "Closing the Gap?: Admissions & Enrollments at the Texas Public Flagships Before and After Affirmative Action," Working Papers 303, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Office of Population Research..
    8. Loury, Linda Datcher & Garman, David, 1995. "College Selectivity and Earnings," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 289-308, April.
    9. repec:pri:edures:16ersrevised.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Dominic J. Brewer & Eric R. Eide & Ronald G. Ehrenberg, 1999. "Does It Pay to Attend an Elite Private College? Cross-Cohort Evidence on the Effects of College Type on Earnings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(1), pages 104-123.
    11. Jesse Rothstein & Albert Yoon, 2006. "Mismatch in Law School," Working Papers 29, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Education Research Section..
    12. Dickson, Lisa M., 2006. "Does ending affirmative action in college admissions lower the percent of minority students applying to college?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 109-119, February.
    13. Kalena E. Cortes & Andrew I. Friedson, 2014. "Ranking Up by Moving Out: The Effect of the Texas Top 10% Plan on Property Values," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(1), pages 51-76, March.
    14. Loury, Linda Datcher & Garman, David, 1993. "Affirmative Action in Higher Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 99-103, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cortes, Kalena E., 2010. "Do Bans on Affirmative Action Hurt Minority Students? Evidence from the Texas Top 10% Plan," IZA Discussion Papers 5021, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Hinrichs, Peter, 2014. "Affirmative action bans and college graduation rates," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 43-52.
    3. Francis-Tan, Andrew & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2018. "Black Movement: Using discontinuities in admissions to study the effects of college quality and affirmative action," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 97-116.
    4. Mariana Alfonso & Juan Carlos Calcagno, 2007. "Matriculación de minorías en universidades públicas de selectividad diversa, bajo distintos regímenes de admisión: El caso de Texas," Research Department Publications 4543, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    5. Mariana Alfonso & Juan Carlos Calcagno, 2007. "Minority Enrollments at Public Universities of Diverse Selectivity Levels under Different Admission Regimes: The Case of Texas," Research Department Publications 4542, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    6. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim, 2016. "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Trade-Off," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 3-51, March.
    7. Peter Hinrichs, 2012. "The Effects of Affirmative Action Bans on College Enrollment, Educational Attainment, and the Demographic Composition of Universities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 712-722, August.
    8. Long, Mark C., 2008. "College quality and early adult outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 588-602, October.
    9. Smith, Jonathan, 2013. "Ova and out: Using twins to estimate the educational returns to attending a selective college," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 166-180.
    10. Dickson, Lisa & Pender, Matea, 2013. "Do in-state tuition benefits affect the enrollment of non-citizens? Evidence from universities in Texas," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 126-137.
    11. Andrews, Rodney J. & Ranchhod, Vimal & Sathy, Viji, 2010. "Estimating the responsiveness of college applications to the likelihood of acceptance and financial assistance: Evidence from Texas," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 104-115, February.
    12. Long, Mark C., 2010. "Changes in the returns to education and college quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 338-347, June.
    13. Eliasson, Kent, 2006. "The Role of Ability in Estimating the Returns to College Choice: New Swedish Evidence," Umeå Economic Studies 691, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    14. Suqin Ge & Elliott Isaac & Amalia Miller, 2022. "Elite Schools and Opting In: Effects of College Selectivity on Career and Family Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(S1), pages 383-427.
    15. Eliasson, Kent, 2006. "How Robust is the Evidence on the Returns to College Choice? Results Using Swedish Administrative Data," Umeå Economic Studies 692, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    16. David Welsch, 2012. "Affirmative Action in College Admission Decisions and the Distribution of Human Capital," Working Papers 12-02, UW-Whitewater, Department of Economics.
    17. Maria Eduarda Tannuri Pianto & Andrew Francis, 2011. "The Redistributive Efficacy Ofaffirmative Action: Exploring The Role Of Race And Socioeconomic Statusin College Admissions," Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 38th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 218, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    18. Klasik, Daniel & Cortes, Kalena E., 2022. "Uniform admissions, unequal access: Did the top 10% plan increase access to selective flagship institutions?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    19. Henrique Z. Motte & Rodrigo Oliveira, 2020. "The effect of class assignment on academic performance and the labour market: Evidence from a public federal university in Brazil," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-8, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Francis, Andrew M. & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2012. "The redistributive equity of affirmative action: Exploring the role of race, socioeconomic status, and gender in college admissions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 45-55.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:29:y:2010:i:6:p:1110-1124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.