Is reservation policy useful in higher end colleges? A case study from IIT-Delhi

A great beginning to the new year as got to to read a paper like this. The paper is by Veronica Frisancho Robles and Kala Krishna of Penn State Univ.

The paper looks at whether reservation policy (quotas for SC/ST/OBC students) worked in IIT-Delhi. They call reservations as affirmative action in education to bridge the divide between haves and have nots. The sample size is pretty small and limited as they only look at graduating class of 2008  which includes 354 Bachelor students and 97 Dual Degree students. But still it is the overall coverage of the paper and the issues they look at which is really impressive.

In the paper they look at this issue via three ways – targeting, mismatch and catch-up. Targeting looks at whether the policies are able to target right individuals. catch-up is whether deprived students are able to catch up with their peers over the course. Mismatch is when students take up courses without having an aptitude for the same and end up doing worse. So, in case of mismatch you could actually see reservation policies hurting as quota students taking up higher-end engineering which may not suit their aptitude.

‘Affirmative action (AA) policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged groups. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of minority preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. The debate has mainly focused on three issues: targeting, mismatch, and catch up.

It is well known that family income is a strong predictor of performance. Thus, there is great concern about the fairness of targeting based on race, ethnicity, or caste rather than on income. If admission preferences only allow richer students within the minority group to traverse the (lower) hurdles required for admission, then they may be displacing poor students from the non-minority or general group. This is also called the “creamy layer problem” in India. 

The second issue is catch up. Students admitted to college under preferences often start off far behind those admitted under regular admission criteria. But how does the gap between these two groups change as both progress through college? Do they catch up or fall further behind? If those admitted under preferences can catch up, even part of the way, then the case for preferences is clearly stronger than if they fall further behind.

Opponents of AA also claim that the actual gains for the intended beneficiaries of the policy may not exist. In the extreme case, minority students may even be worse off if they are unprepared for the academic environment they obtain access to through the policy. This argument is known as the mismatch hypothesis: students who do not qualify for ordinary admission would do better if they enrolled at schools and/or majors which are more in line with their credentials.
If there is severe mismatch, then preferences may even do more harm than good.

 In case of US, targeting did not really work as rich black students started displacing poor black students.

Most of the studies to date are narrowly focused on the effects of AA on US minorities’ college performance and labor outcomes. The US, we think, is a poor setting in which to look for such evidence. In most US higher education settings, selection criteria are relatively nebulous. While institutions do want good students, they pay attention to much more than grades or SAT scores in deciding whom to admit.1 SAT scores, extracurricular activities, essays,

alumni ties, interviews, the perceived likelihood of the student coming2 and donations all matter. Moreover, AA policies in the US are themselves relatively nebulous: even in their heyday, they basically consisted of adding some “points” for race. There were rarely quotas or large and well documented differences in admission standards.3 Finally, American students have a huge amount of choice over courses while in college. For example, if smart/serious students take harder courses where good grades are more difficult to obtain, while poor students take the “gut” courses where an A- is ensured with minimal effort, then grades may provide little information on actual academic performance. For all these reasons, the U.S. may not be the best place to evaluate the effects of AA.

 However in case of India and particularly IIT, this targeting thing is much better.

The evidence presented here is particularly important due to its focus on India, which provides a better setting than the US. In India, admission criteria are clear: performance in an open admission exam or in the school leaving exam is all that matters. Moreover, admission preferences imposed by AA in India are far greater than the ones given to African American or Hispanic applicants in the US. India has very strict and binding quotas in higher education in favor of scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST).

The major finding is reservations do not really work , atleast for this batch size.

• Targeting: This research shows quota students have more poor students  than rich ones. Hence targeting is effective
• Catching up: This is the most important objective. However, authors find via various ways that catching up does not happen. In some cases, they might actually be getting worse as general category does even better and widening the divide between them.
• Mismatch: again via various ways they show students in quotas end up choosing more higher end engineering fields and non-performing. So there is a mismatch. They even end up getting lower salaries than the other quota students who choose lower end fields. The even show that minority students who take up selective engineering course are more unhappy and depresses compared to others as their performance not upto the mark.

 

We provide some basic evidence on three issues central to the debate over AA: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. We also offer some basic evidence on discrimination. We find that minority admission preferences seem to be doing a reasonable job targeting poorer populations, though there seems to be little evidence of catch up. In fact, minority students in more selective majors seem to be falling behind, suggesting that mismatch effects might be present. Finally, we find no effect of major selectivity on wages for minority students when only observables areassumed to drive select ion into selective majors. However, when the effect of unobservables is taken into account, the results suggest that minority students do not benefit from  being in selective majors to which they are attracted by the preferences. In fact, SC/ST students in selective majors earn less than minority students in less selective majors, supporting the mismatch hypothesis. Although there are no earnings differentials by caste within occupations, minority students seem to be placed in worse occupations than general students.

 A must read paper. The findings are obviously going to be hugely disputed as based on limited data and too small a sample. And it is such a sensitive issue.For instance in another paper (am about to read) authors show the reservation policies work.

But if you need to evaluate this issue, that is how research should be done. Very neatly and nicely explained….