Spatial competition for students: What does (not) matter?

Abstract

Regional cohesion and competition for students has fostered interest in the decisionmaking process behind the selection of higher education institution. We use a gravity model approach to estimate the impact of socio-economic profle of districts and characteristics of higher education institutions on the migratory fows of candidates to undergraduate programmes in Portugal. Elasticity to distance is found to be negative, in line with the literature . The characteristics of the district of destination are unimportant, contrasting with the characteristics of institutions: a measure of propensity to unemployment among graduates is associated with smaller incoming fows, the number of vacancies is associated with a more than proportional positive impact on fows, and universities are shown to attract more students than polytechnics. Regarding the district of origin, the greater the local supply of higher education, the lower the outgoing fows, and the larger the young population, the higher the outgoing fows.