Academic performance and the quota system in higher education

empirical evidence with data of the Federal University of Bahia

Abstract

Affirmative actions' initiatives intend to promote the equality of opportunities to social groups historically subject to discrimination. At the higher education level, the policy takes the form of quotas and other mechanisms to facilitate the access of these individuals to the university and to reduce evasion. This paper aims at verifying academic performance differences between quota and non-quota students at Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). Using data from 8,546 students which were accepted by UFBA and concluded their studies in the 2005-2013 period, this article presents the results of PSM estimations using different data matching methods and four performance indicators. The results indicate that quota students present lower academic achievement that non-quota students at the aggregate level. However, when controlling for the areas of study, this performance difference applies only to health sciences' students, a result which indicates that social and economic factors are more relevant for performance than school origin.