The Effect of Banning Affirmative Action on College Admissions Policies and Student Quality

Abstract

Using administrative data from the University of California (UC), we present evidence that UC campuses changed the weight given to SAT scores, high school GPA, and family background in response to California’s ban on race-based affirmative action, and that these changes were able to substantially (though far from completely) offset the fall in minority admissions rates. For both minorities and nonminorities, these changes to the estimated admissions rule hurt students with relatively strong academic credentials and whose parents were relatively affluent and educated. Despite these compositional shifts, however, average student quality (as measured by expected first-year college GPA) remained stable.