An analysis of the application and enrollment processes for in-state and out-of-state students at a large public university

Abstract

This paper extends prior work by jointly modeling the application and enrollment decision for in-state and out-of-state freshmen at a large public university. Two separate empirical analyses use individual and aggregate time-series data for the University of Oregon to estimate and compare the responsiveness of applicants and enrollees to person-specific and time-specific variation in the net price. The results show that prior studies may understate student price responsiveness by separately focusing on the application or enrollment decision. Moreover, the elasticity estimates are found to differ for in-state and out-of-state students and can be sensitive to whether the price variation occurs across individuals or over time.