Assistant Professor of Economics and Education, Columbia University
CERAS Learning Hall
This paper studies the long-run impact of a court-ordered desegregation ruling on education outcomes. This ruling mandates that seven school districts, which serve higher-income, predominantly-white families, accept a fixed number of minority elementary school students each year who apply to transfer from a nearby, predominantly minority school district. The fixed number of slots are allocated to families via lottery. The offer to transfer increases the number of students who enroll in college by 7 percentage points. This result is driven by greater attendance to two-year and public colleges, though there are substantial heterogeneous effects. Effects are substantially larger for Black and male students.