University Prestige and First-Time Undergraduate Migration in the United States

It is estimated that about one-fourth of the first-time undergraduates in the major American universities in 1963 were interstate migrants, although this varied by type of university. In private non-denominational institutions, for example, about two-thirds were interstate migrants. The purpose of this paper is to indicate the extent to which university prestige accounted for migration to the major American universities in 1963. In order to control for the influences of origin state population size and distance to the universities, a gravity adjusted index of migration is formulated. Gourman ratings of colleges and universities and the Gross-Grambsch quality ratings of graduate facilities were the prestige indexes utilized. The basic finding of the study is that prestige only accounts for a modest proportion of the variation in interstate migration of students. Factors other than prestige must be considered to account fully for the migration of first-time undergraduate students to the major institutions in the United States.