Class Year
2021
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Fall 2019
Department 1
Economics
Abstract
Increased media attention on college crime, specifically sexual assault, has led to greater prioritization of campus safety when deciding whether to continue attending a college. This, coupled with society’s view of a four-year college education as a necessity to succeed in the labor market, creates a potential tradeoff between safety on campus and future employment success. To analyze such tradeoff, I use data from the US Department of Education from 2014 to 2017 to examine whether college campus sexual assault at four-year American institutions impacts retention rates. Such results have implications for college policies to combat sexual assault on campus not only to keep students safe, but to prevent students from transferring or dropping out which could curb institutional money flow. Using an OLS model that addresses typical difficulties associated with time series work, I find that college campus sexual assault decreases retention rates at a statistically significant level, implying that college students value their safety at school more than any potential change in their future job market success due to transferring or dropping out.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Hauer, Abigail R., "College Campus Sexual Assault and Retention Rates" (2019). Student Publications. 778.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/778
Included in
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Higher Education Commons
Comments
Written for ECON 352: Advanced Econometrics.