The Leaky College Pipeline: Evidence from Administrative Data in Uganda

We use linked administrative data from Uganda to track student progression from primary school through university scholarship admission, documenting large leaks in the education pipeline at every stage. Many high-performing students from poorer districts exit before upper secondary school, so the pool eligible for selective public university admission is highly socioeconomically stratified. Merit scholarships are heavily concentrated in a small number of elite secondary schools in the Kampala metropolitan area, implying that financial aid primarily rewards earlier advantages. The results highlight that tertiary merit aid alone cannot equalize access without upstream reforms to broaden basic and secondary education access.