Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments August 14, 2022 erstellt
Beschreibung:
Promoting talent is a key goal in education. In countries with competitive tertiary education, elite flagship institutions attract high-achieving students. Can honors program be an alternative way to nurture talent? This paper studies the causal impact of attending an honors program offered to high achieving students at a non-selective university in a context with non-competitive tertiary institutions. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the program's admission procedure, which leads to a strong discontinuity in the probability of admission and enrollment. We show the program works as both a recruitment device, increasing the probability of enrolling at the parent university (+8 pp), as well as a commitment device, reducing drop out rates (-7 pp) for admitted students. Moreover, enrollment into the program leads to a sizable improvement on academic achievement (+0.53 GPA points on a scale of 30) and shapes future labor market prospects towards post graduate studies (+18 pp). Prospects are confirmed by an increase (+37 pp) in the proportion of graduates enrolled in PhD programs one year after graduation. According to our findings, honors programs can be an effective tool to improve educational attainment and foster further human capital accumulation in talented students, mainly through an increase in transitions towards PhD programs