Title: The effect of the Maclean’s University rankings on the demand and supply side outcomes of Canadian universities
Description: The two papers in this dissertation examine the effect of the Maclean's university rankings on the market for higher education in Ontario (Canada). The first paper investigates the demand-side impact of the rankings, by estimating the effect of a university's rank on the application decisions of prospective students. The second paper--which examines the supply-side impact of the rankings--looks at the effect of a university's rank on its behavior and characteristics. Specifically, I investigate the various means through which a university will attempt to improve its rank (i.e. resource allocation, financial aid, admissions policies, faculty salaries), and whether these strategies will achieve their intended result, namely to improve the university's score on the indicators used in the Maclean's methodology (i.e. student quality, faculty quality, donations, and reputation). To isolate the effect of a university's rank from that of the many unobserved factors that affect the decisions of administrators and stakeholders, both papers exploit a feature of the magazine's methodology that creates exogenous variation in rank. The dissertation's findings indicate that the Maclean's rankings have had a considerable impact on the market for higher education in Ontario.

The first paper finds that a university's rank significantly affects the application decisions of prospective students. The second paper concludes that a university's actions and decisions are also affected by its rank, but that some of its behavioral responses may compromise important social policy objectives. These findings provide several lessons that are relevant to the use of post-secondary accountability systems such as performance reporting.
Subjects: Higher Education, College choice, Case studies
Places: Canada