University admissions policy in a developing country: evidence from the University of the West Indies

Universities in developing countries are often faced with the twin burden o f increasing demand for tertiary education and a shrinking share of the gov ernment education budget. Cost-effective delivery of university education r equires designing appropriate programs and admissions policies that do not compromise academic standards. This paper critically analyzes the admission s policy by the University of the West Indies (UWI) of increasing the share of part-time students in undergraduate enrolment. Using data on student gr ades in first year courses in social science, the paper shows that part-tim e students are significantly more likely to fail these courses than full-ti me students, even after controlling for observable differences in age, sex, choice of major and pre-entry qualifications. Given the profile of the typ ical part-time student at UWI, the paper suggests that lower motivation and greater time constraints account for the poor performance of these student s, and proposes two solutions to reduce the social cost of high failure ass ociated with part-time students [JEL: I22, I28]. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.