Does Attending a Catholic School Make a Difference? Evidence From Italy

This paper analyses whether attending a Catholic high school in Italy yields higher benefits in student achievement compared with enrolment at a public school. Because a measure of the success of a given high school might be how its students perform after leaving high school, our attention is focused on university participation and the risk of university dropout. We find that attending a Catholic school increases the likelihood of enrolling at university but has no effect on dropout behaviour. Additionally, our findings show that the source of the effectiveness of Catholic schools in boosting university participation does not lie in better resource availability, peer group influences or positive selection.