A newly published study of college enrollment data found that states’ adoption of recreational marijuana legalization (RML) “increases enrollments by approximately up to 9%, without compromising degree completion or graduation rate.” Increases in out-of-state enrollments further suggest the policy shift “boosts college competitiveness by offering a positive amenity,” the report says, with “no evidence that RML affects college prices, quality, or in-state enrollment.”
The findings by University of Oklahoma graduate student Ahmed El Fatmaoui were published last month in the journal Economic Inquiry. They build on past research, such as a 2022 study that found that schools in states that legalized marijuana saw larger application pools, with no apparent decline in the quality of student applicants.
As in the earlier study, El Fatmaoui used data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which come from surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. He supplemented that in the new research with county-level data “to construct a panel dataset of colleges and their characteristics from 2009 to 2019.”
The main results of statistical significance, the latest study says, “indicate that RML increases enrollment by 4.6%–9%.” Increases in enrollment rates were seen in both men and women and, notably, took place after a delay following legalization.
“The results indicate that both women’s and men’s enrollments rose significantly after the fourth year of the first dispensary opening,” the report says, noting that the delay could be due to a number of factors. Among them may be “the slow and gradual development of a marijuana consumption culture,” the time it takes for students to decide on and apply to college as well as the sometimes sluggish rollout of marijuana retail markets.
Another possible explanation El Fatmaoui acknowledges is that “states may use the additional tax revenue from marijuana sales to subsidize their higher education sector,” which itself could draw higher enrollment.
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