Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/295836 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 16813
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study how colleges shape their students' voting habits by linking millions of SAT takers to their college-enrollment and voting histories. To begin, we show that the fraction of students from a particular college who vote varies systematically by the college's attributes (e.g. increasing with selectivity) but also that seemingly similar colleges can have markedly different voting rates. Next, after controlling for students' college application portfolios and pre-college voting behavior, we find that attending a college with a 10 percentage-point higher voting rate increases entrants' probability of voting by 4 percentage points (10 percent). This effect arises during college, persists after college, and is almost entirely driven by higher voting-rate colleges making new voters. College peers' initial voting propensity plays no discernible role.
Subjects: 
college choice
returns to college
civic engagement
voting
JEL: 
I23
I26
D72
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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