The Consequences of Increasingly Competitive College Admissions
Two new NBER working papers on a similar theme came across my inbox this morning:
After three decades of decline, the amount of time spent by parents on childcare in the U.S. began to rise dramatically in the mid-1990s. Moreover, the rise in childcare time was particularly pronounced among college-educated parents. Why would highly educated parents increase the amount of time they allocate to childcare at the same time that their own market returns have skyrocketed? After finding no empirical support for standard explanations, such as selection or income effects, we offer a new explanation. We argue that increased competition for college admissions may be an important source of these trends. The number of college-bound students has surged in recent years, coincident with the rise in time spent on childcare. The resulting “cohort crowding” has led parents to compete more aggressively for college slots by spending increasing amounts of time on college preparation. Our theoretical model shows that, since college-educated parents have a comparative advantage in college preparation, rivalry leads them to increase preparation time by a greater amount than less-educated parents. We provide empirical support for our explanation with a comparison of trends between the U.S. and Canada, and a comparison across racial groups in the U.S.
Playing the Admissions Game, Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition
Gaining entrance to a four-year college or university, particularly a selective institution, has become increasingly competitive over the last several decades. We document this phenomenon and show how it has varied across different parts of the student ability distribution and across region, with the most pronounced increases in competition being found among higher-ability students and in the Northeast. Additionally, we explore how the college preparatory behavior of high school seniors has changed in response to the growth in competition. We also discuss the theoretical implications of increased competition on longer-term measures of learning and achievement and attempt to test them empirically; the evidence and related literature, while limited, suggests little long-term benefit.
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My guess is that this will
My guess is that this will diminish, not get worse. Partly this will be because the next several cohorts are a little smaller, but mostly because many of the areas from which competitive college students have been coming have seen house price declines and job losses, you can't fund junior's time at Yale from a HELOC anymore. That, and the word is getting out about desperate graduate women with $80,000 student debts looking for guys who will take them, and their debts, on in marriage, and the guys thinking, meh.
Trends have a way of not being linear
Stipulate:
1. We've agreed that we will maintain the semblance of a meritocracy.
2. Entrance into a "Top 20" school greatly enhances the "merit scores" of those who attend.
3. Opportunities in general are growing fewer as the technology revolution slows down and before the biological revolution takes off.
4. Those opportunities that ARE there will go to those with the highest "Merit scores"
5. The generation under 30 was raised with college Top 20 lists, they know them by heart, and strictly evaluate applicants by whether or not they're in that list.
Theory #1: Children and parents who have any chance at all will go to extraordinary lengths to improve their probabilities of being selected by the Top 20.
Theory #2: Those top 20 institutions know what's going on and will do everything in their power to maintain their status at that level.
Theory #3: The money requested by those Top 20 institutions has no practical upper cap (corollary to #1 & #2).
Theory #4: Institutions outside the top 20 will see severe price pressure as some of the demographics change and the hiring practices in Stipulation 4 & 5 become more pronounced (as this generation becomes Directors and VPs).
As a parent, what would you do? If you yourself evaluate everyone on the basis of whether they went to a Top 20 school, aren't you going to evaluate your children the same way? Aren't you going to try to game an essentially random decision process? It's the equivalent of getting your kids onto a lifeboat.
"Opportunities in general are
"Opportunities in general are growing fewer as the technology revolution slows down and before the biological revolution takes off."
And if the biomedical portion of the biological revolution becomes more highly government controlled in the US, it is likely the last remaining large "early adopter" of new drugs and medical devices will leave the market shortly.
It this thesis were valid
It this thesis were valid shouldn't we be seeing the participation rate for women in their prime child rearing years -- 25-34 falling. It eased off a little in the early 2000's, but since 2004 it has rebounded to almost its previous peak.
Meanwhile the participation rate for males 45 to 54 has fallen sharply. I doubt if these men are staying home to give their children more care.
Competing freshman
It has become an incredibly competitive task to not only do well in high school but to become well versed in extra curriculars as well. Recruiters are not only looking for grades but for the overall student package.