Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Recent evidence indicates that college classmates influence employment outcomes for college graduates (e.g., Zimmerman 2015),yet there is no evidence on how alumni networks affect employment outcomes. This paper relies on a unique dataset of nearly 700,000 undergraduate students who enrolled as first-time freshmen in one of the 18 institutions of the City University of New York (CUNY) over the years 1999 to 2015. In addition to tracking students’ pre-college academic achievement, basic demographic data, and college outcomes, the data record labor market outcomes for students both during and after they leave the CUNY system. A key feature of these employment data is that we can match students to specific establishments and track the outcomes of students who complete their degrees as well as those who do not complete their degrees. Using these data, we identify the effect of within-major alumni networks on the probability of employment in the same establishment. Our analyses shed light on the role that networks play in employment outcomes for students at different stages of their college careers and from different backgrounds.