We investigate the effect of college acquisitions on the probability of students dropping out of college. Using administrative data for the further education sector, which covers multiple cohorts, we estimate matching models and combine them with difference-in-differences methods to remove the effects of unobserved student and college heterogeneity. Overall our findings show that acquisitions reduce the probability of dropout by 0.01 percentage points, but this varies in magnitude and direction over time. In general, positive effects of acquisitions on drop out behaviour tend to be small (e.g. 0.001 for acquisitions in 2004) and dissipate over time, whereas negative effects persist and tend to increase in magnitude over time (e.g. -0.05 one year later and -0.07 two years later). We discuss the implications for policy and practice in the sector, as well as suggesting a need for similar analyses in other education sectors, such as primary and secondary schooling.

中文翻译：

---

大学并购对学生辍学行为的影响：来自英国的证据

我们调查了大学收购对学生辍学的可能性的影响。使用涵盖多个队列的继续教育部门的行政数据，我们估计匹配模型，并将它们与差异方法相结合，以消除未观察到的学生和大学异质性的影响。总体而言，我们的发现表明，收购可以使辍学的可能性降低0.01个百分点，但这在幅度和方向上会随着时间而变化。通常，收购对辍学行为的积极影响往往很小（例如，2004年的收购为0.001），并且会随着时间的流逝而消散，而负面影响会持续存在，并随着时间的流逝而增加（例如，一年后为-0.05，-0.07两年后）。我们讨论了该行业对政策和实践的影响，