College Quality and Attendance Patterns: A Long-Run View

We construct a time series of college attendance patterns for the United States and document reversal: family background was better predictor before World War II, but academic ability afterward. model choice that explains this reversal. The model’s central mechanism is an exogenous surge leads colleges to be oversubscribed, institute selective admissions, raise their quality relative peers, as in Hoxby (2009). Rising at attracts high-ability students, while falling remaining dissuades low-ability generating (JEL I23, J12, N32)