The paper analyzes the Grade Point Average (GPA) of more than 5,000 undergraduates at the University of California, San Diego. Personal background strongly affects GPA. Graduates of different high schools obtain significantly different GPAs, even after controlling for personal background. These school effects in part reflect the incidence of poverty and the level of education among adults in the school neighborhood. Teachers' experience in the student's high. school bears a positive and significant link to the student's university GPA, but the effect is small. No such positive link with GPA emerged for the teacher-pupil ratio or teachers' level of education.

Julian R. Betts is a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego. Darlene Morell is the Director of Student Research and Information, Student Affairs, University of California, San Diego. This research was supported by a grant from the UCSD Chancellor's Associates. The authors wish to thank UCSD and Richard Atkinson for their support of this research. They also thank Eric Kyner and Greg Martin for their expert research assistance, and two referees for helpful suggestions. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning September 1999 through September 2002 from Julian R. Betts, Department of Economics, UCSD, La Jolla, CA, subject to the recipient(s) signing a confidentiality agreement ensuring that the data will not be released to others without permission, or used to identify individuals in the study.

© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

US ISSN 0022-166X

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