Immigration and its effect on the college-going outcomes of natives

In this paper. I analyze immigration's effect on the SAT-scores and college application patterns of high school students in California and Texas. The student-level dataset used is longitudinal in nature and is matched via a unique algorithm to the Census 2000 summary tabulation files to determine immigration at the local census-place level. The Census measure of immigration developed here is extremely specific and improves upon existing immigration measures. Using empirical strategies to account for issues of selection, this essay's main finding is that the 1990s immigration did not harm, and possibly benefited the student outcomes of U.S. citizens. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.