Busing to Opportunity? The Impacts of the METCO Voluntary School Desegregation Program on Urban Students of Color

School assignment policies are a key lever for expanding access to high-performing schools and promoting racial and socioeconomic integration. For over 50 years, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) has bussed students of color from Boston, Massachusetts to relatively wealthier and predominantly White suburbs. I estimate the effects of attending a high-performing suburban school by comparing applicants who receive enrollment offers with applicants who do not. A two-stage least squares approach exploits waitlist assignment priorities and controls for a rich set of characteristics from birth records and application data. Attending a suburban school boosts math and English test scores, reduces dropout, and increases on-time high school graduation. Four-year college aspirations, enrollment, and graduation increase along with earnings in adulthood. Students whose parents did not attend college and boys experience the largest effects. The evidence points to several mechanisms, including access to higher value-added schools, higher achieving peers, and schools with stronger college-going norms. Participants are more likely to be tracked into lower performing classes, implying that effects could be larger with access to more advanced coursework. District value-added estimates suggest that students’ educational trajectories shift at least as much as they would from growing up in the suburban districts.