Heat impacts college student grades even in rich Singapore

The rich city-state of Singapore has invested heavily to adapt to its current tropical climate. We access all student-level undergraduate course records between 2005 and 2019 at one of its leading universities and find that even here, fluctuations in heat impact human capital formation. An in-sample shift in de-seasoned weather from the coolest to the hottest semester reduces semester-long performance by 1.5%. Using quasi-random variation, we find evidence that access to dorm air conditioning alleviates some of the impact of ambient heat on student learning. Yet heat still hurts the performance of students with access to cooling at home. Our study, which is inclusive of routine human behavior, suggests either a practical limit to adaptation or that adaptation can go further. We find larger heat impacts among students from temperate nations pursuing their undergraduate studies at this Asian educational hub, pointing to some scope for acclimatization. Whether through physiology or behavior, male learners are more vulnerable to heat than females.