FINISHING HIGH-SCHOOL AND STARTING COLLEGE - DO CATHOLIC-SCHOOLS MAKEA DIFFERENCE

In this paper, we consider two measures of the relative effectiveness of public and Catholic schools: finishing high school and starting col lege. These measures are potentially more important indicators of scho ol quality than standardized test scores in light of the economic cons equences of obtaining more education. Single-equation estimates sugges t that for the typical student, attending a Catholic high school raise s the probability of finishing high school or entering a four-year col lege by thirteen percentage points. In bivariate probit models we find almost no evidence that our single-equation estimates are subject to selection bias.