College Readiness Assessment
Category: Pathways to and Through Postsecondary
Multiple studies suggest that policies mandating college entrance exams can have positive impacts on college outcomes, especially for students who would otherwise not sit for the exam. Less understood is how families react to this increased competition for college admissions. Our study estimates that such statewide mandatory testing policies cause an additional 16% increase in private tutoring prevalence, with more pronounced effects in high income, highly educated, and high proportion Asian areas. The results were robust to model specification choices and placebo tests using music instruction and martial arts industries. Our findings suggest that interventions to further educational equality may have second order effects that undermine their impact as families adjust their behavior to stay competitive.
Keywords
Quasi-experimental Methods; Testing; Tutoring
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/zvxt-b655
