Enrolling in Higher Education: the impact of regional mobility and public-private substitution effects

In this article, we study the enrollment decision of candidates to Portuguese
public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). We classify candidates according to their
revealed preference for regional mobility and measure the impact of their mobility status on
the likelihood of enrollment. For instance, candidates succeeding to be placed in their home
district are about fourteen percentage points more likely to enroll than those pushed away.
We also show that distance deters enrollments, even for candidates that reveal a preference
for migrating. Finally, we measure the impact of the availability of private sector alternatives
in the home district on the likelihood of enrollment and show that their existence reduces
the likelihood of enrollment by up to nine percentage points.