Enrolling at university and the social influence of peers

This article studies peer effects on the decision to enroll at university. To determine the social influence of peers, we use a measure encompassing the two major dimensions of social influence in the classroom: the ability and capacity of peers to exchange information about study options. This paper uses French administrative data on the universe of first year applicants to a single university over seven consecutive cohorts. We exploit idiosyncratic variations in the proportion of peers advised to change their educational choice. We find that our variable of interest has a small but negative and significant effect on the individual decision to attend university and observe stronger peer effects among groups of students of similar gender or socio-economic background. We also find a weaker impact of the proportion of peers advised to change their educational choice on the individuals of higher level of academic ability.