The effects of high school math curriculum on college attendance: Evidence from the NLSY97

Using a sample of youth who graduated from high school in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this paper examines the impact of high school math curriculum on the decision to go to college. Results that control for unobserved differences between students and their families suggest that a more rigorous high school math curriculum is associated with a higher probability of attending college and of attending a 4-year college. The household fixed effect results imply that students who take an advanced academic math curriculum in high school (algebra II or precalculus, trigonometry, or calculus) are about 17 percentage points more likely to go to college and 20 percentage points more likely to start college at a 4-year school by age 21 compared to those students whose highest math class was algebra I or geometry.

► I estimate the effect of high school math curriculum on college attendance by age 21.
► Taking an advanced math curriculum in high school is associated with a higher probability of attending college and of starting college at a 4-year school, compared to stopping at algebra or geometry.
► The finding that an advanced math curriculum increases the chances of attending college and of starting college at a 4-year school are robust to the inclusion of a household fixed effect.