THE EFFECTS OF CATHOLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLING ON EDUCATIONAL-ACHIEVEMENT

This article examines the effect of Catholic secondary schooling on hi gh school graduation rates, college graduation rates, and future wages . The article introduces new measures of access to Catholic schools th at serve as potential instruments for Catholic school attendance. Cath olic secondary schools are geographically concentrated in urban areas, and Catholic schooling does increase educational attainment significa ntly among urban minorities. The gains from Catholic schooling are mod est for urban whites and negligible for suburban students. Related ana lyses suggest chat urban minorities benefit greatly from access to Cat holic schooling primarily because the public schools available to them are quite poor.