From high school jocks to college grads - Assessing the long-term effects of high school sport participation on females' educational attainment

Various studies show that interscholastic sport participants, and specifically female athletes, enjoy numerous educational benefits at the high school level. Because of the influx in the number of females engaging in high school sport that has occurred during the past 30 years, few studies have been able to adequately assess whether females' involvement in interscholastic sport has any long-term consequences. In this study, the authors examine whether females who participated in high school athletics are more likely to graduate from college than are their counterparts. The authors use data from the National Education Longitudinal Study and employ multilevel models with random effects. They find that females who engage in interscholastic high school sport have higher odds of completing college than do their counterparts.