Subway access and school participation: evidence from Brazil

Abstract

Despite educational policies targeted to increase school participation, transportation costs can still pose a significant barrier to student retention. Using a subway expansion policy in a Brazilian city with pressing school participation issues, we evaluate how a significant expansion in public transit infrastructure can affect dropout rates in schools that are more exposed to this intervention. To establish causality, we leverage the exogenous variation in the staggered opening of subway stations and the proximity of schools to these new facilities using a difference-in-differences research design. We find robust evidence that schools located near subway stations retain significantly more students at both elementary and high school levels. This effect is entirely driven by public schools, which experience an average reduction in dropout rates by 24%. While the increase in retention rates does not affect student performance or relate to school and teacher quality, we find that students’ background play a crucial role in moderating the policy’s impact. Our findings underscore that transportation policies can have significant spillover effects on school participation, contributing to better educational outcomes, even within sprawling urban environments.