Do For-Profit Colleges Encourage Their Students to Vote and Volunteer?

Abstract

For-profit colleges have long been a feature of the American higher education landscape and the quality of the education they provide has always been under question. This paper investigates the effects of attending a for-profit college on voting and volunteering as compared to individuals who attended a not-for-profit college or no college at all. Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997) from 2004 to 2013 and a cross-sectional identification strategy, I find that students attending a not-for-profit college had greater odds of voting in the 2004 and 2008 elections, while those who attended a for-profit college had no different odds of voting than those who were not attending college. Additionally, I find that students attending a not-for-profit college had greater odds of volunteering in all four years of this study. My research indicates that the type of college one chooses to attend does influence civic participation and that operators of for-profit colleges have an opportunity to encourage their students to vote and volunteer.