Academic Outcomes and Texas’s Top Ten Percent Law

Abstract

In this article, the author estimates the causal effect of attending a selective college on a student’s academic performance. The results differ from previous studies because the author estimates a local effect, identified only for students who enroll in a selective college but would not have been able to do so without the guaranteed admissions granted to them by Texas’s Top Ten Percent Law. Differing from many previous studies, the author finds significant negative effects of attending a selective college on the following measures: first- and sixth-semester grade point average, probability of completing the sixth semester, and graduation probability.