Destinations of Admitted Out-of-State Students: A Case of One Institution

In recent years many public colleges have attempted to attract and enroll high-achieving and diverse out-of-state students. Understanding why admitted out-of-state students choose to accept or decline their offers of admission has become an important part of these institutions’ efforts to achieve their enrollment goals. In this study, out-of-state students admitted to a public research university over a period of 5 years are tracked using the National Student Clearinghouse database to establish their destination institutions. The dependent variable reflects the type of institution chosen by these students, i.e. private or public, in-state or out-of-state, 4-year or 2-year. The baseline group is composed of those out-of-state students who chose to enroll at the study institution. Mixed multinomial models are estimated using the R mlogit package. Findings indicate that the type of institution these students choose is associated with their high school performance and their parents’ educational attainment and income, as well as with the financial aid they were offered by the study institution.