The Impact of Israel’s Class-Based Affirmative Action on Admission and Academic Outcomes

Sigal Alon, Tel Aviv University
Ofer Malamud, University of Chicago

In the early to mid-2000s, four flagship Israeli selective universities introduced a voluntary need-blind and color-blind affirmative action policy for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The program allowed departments to offer admission to academically borderline applicants who were above a certain threshold of disadvantage. We examine the effect of eligibility for affirmative action on admission and enrollment outcomes as well as on academic achievement using a regression discontinuity (RD) design.