Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A decade ago, the National Evaluation of Charter Middle Schools examined how admission to a diverse set of charter middle schools across the United States affected students’ achievement (Gleason et al. 2010). Using 36 charter schools’ 2005 and 2006 admissions lotteries, the original study compared lottery winners to lottery losers and found that these schools did not affect achievement, on average. However, some charter schools were successful in improving achievement, including those in urban areas and serving economically disadvantaged students – features of many charter schools today.

There is now a body of literature that documents similar effects of charter schools on student achievement, but less is known about how charter schools affect students in the long run. The few studies that focus on the impacts of charter schools on long-term outcomes are limited in scope and tell a mixed story (Angrist et al. 2016; Dobbie & Fryer 2015; Sass et al. 2016). Yet, as the charter school sector continues to grow, it is important for policymakers to understand whether charters are improving students’ outcomes in the long term.

Students who participated in the National Evaluation of Charter Middle Schools would now be in college or have graduated if they had progressed through middle and high school on track and decided to enroll in college. In the present study, we used 2,873 students’ college data from the National Student Clearinghouse (2009-2017) and a lottery-based design to examine whether the same charter middle schools affected students’ college enrollment and completion. We also looked at whether the schools that were successful in improving achievement also led to improved college enrollment and completion.

We found that being admitted to (or attending) a study charter middle school did not affect students’ likelihood of enrolling in or completing college. There were also no significant differences in the types of colleges where lottery winners versus lottery losers enrolled—including two-year and four-year colleges, public and private colleges (for and non-profit), and more and less selective colleges. Furthermore, a given school’s success in improving achievement was not related to its success in improving college enrollment and completion.

Our study helps fill in gaps in knowledge about the effects of charter schools in the long term, including students’ likelihood of enrolling in, persisting in, and graduating from college.