The Little Undermatch Girl

Economists William Bowen and Michael McPherson have a new book out on American colleges. I haven't read it yet, but an interesting excerpt from the New York Times review:

The first problem that Mr. Bowen, Mr. McPherson and the book’s third author, Matthew Chingos, a doctoral candidate, diagnose is something they call under-matching. It refers to students who choose not to attend the best college they can get into. They instead go to a less selective one, perhaps one that’s closer to home or, given the torturous financial aid process, less expensive.

About half of low-income students with a high school grade-point average of at least 3.5 and an SAT score of at least 1,200 do not attend the best college they could have. Many don’t even apply. Some apply but don’t enroll. “I was really astonished by the degree to which presumptively well-qualified students from poor families under-matched,” Mr. Bowen told me.

They could have been admitted to Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus (graduation rate: 88 percent, according to College Results Online) or Michigan State (74 percent), but they went, say, to Eastern Michigan (39 percent) or Western Michigan (54 percent). If they graduate, it would be hard to get upset about their choice. But large numbers do not. You can see that in the chart with this column.

In effect, well-off students — many of whom will graduate no matter where they go — attend the colleges that do the best job of producing graduates. These are the places where many students live on campus (which raises graduation rates) and graduation is the norm. Meanwhile, lower-income students — even when they are better qualified — often go to colleges that excel in producing dropouts.

Already, left-leaning blogs have picked up the story, claiming that it undermines conservatives' claims that beneficiaries of affirmative action are harmed by being placed in excessively selective schools.

I haven't read the Bowen/McPherson book at all, so I'm ill-positioned to nitpick closely (or at all.) But I'm not so sure. Just because under-matching is bad doesn't mean that overmatching is good, of course. I wonder also if some hidden variables aren't driving Bowen/McPherson's results. Students who voluntarily under-match aren't randomly selected. Maybe under-matched students pick less selective schools close to home because they have disproportionately burdensome family obligations, and the family obligations explain why they don't graduate.

Papa Archer, who taught in a small-town/rural high school for several decades, also used to have elaborate theories on this point. There were certain kids, according to him, who just seemed to have real trouble letting the world of high school go. They under-matched rather than go too far away. Or they'd hang around their old, blue-collar high-school friends and never quite immerse themselves with college. Kids who were more adventuresome and ambitious were more likely to stick it out and make it to graduation. Maybe; accepting that theory would smack a bit too much of self-congratulation.