Race and Ethnic Differences in College Achievement: Does High School Attended Matter?

Abstract

Using 10 years of enrollment data at four Texas public universities, this paper examines whether, to what extent, and in what ways high school attended contributes to racial and ethnic differences in college achievement. Like previous studies, we show that controlling for class rank and test scores shrinks, but does not eliminate, sizable racial differences in college achievement. Fixed-effects models that take into account differences across high schools that minority and nonminority youth attend largely eliminate, and often reverse, black-white and Hispanic-white gaps in several college outcomes. Our results, which are quite robust across universities of varying selectivity, illustrate how high school quality foments race and ethnic inequality in college performance.

Keywords: Minority students, College achievement, Texas Higher Education, High School quality

JEL Classification: I21, I23, J15