Switching from High-stakes to Low-stakes Evaluation: Evidence from a University-level Reform

Education systems universally employ exams as one of the main evaluation tools. The predictive capacity of these assessments regarding future academic and labor achievements, and their impact on equity issues, has long been a topic of discussion. An example of the latter is the admission exam to selective higher education institutions, which on the one hand is predictive of students’ college and post-college performance (UC-Academic-Council (2020), Chetty et al. (2023)) and on the other hand, highlights disparities between high and low-income backgrounds and other groups ((Friedman et al., 2024)). Whether to keep or drop those exams is the question that has challenged many colleges in recent years.