Effects of going Greek: Exploiting information on membership plans

Objectives: Approximately 17 percent of college students in the United States (U.S.) join a social collegiate Greek letter organization, known broadly as fraternities and sororities. Similar organizations exist around the world. Membership is commonly believed to alter students' collegiate experiences and outcomes, as well as some post-graduation outcomes, in significant ways. The organizations themselves make many such claims. Research on the effects of membership has often found evidence of their existence. However, there remains concern about the external validity of institution-specific samples and the potential endogenous nature of membership effect estimates. For example, students who already plan to devote more time to the social aspects of college may be more likely to pursue membership, and this could be a driving factor behind estimates of larger social capital gains, increased alcohol consumption, and decreased academic achievement for some members.

Data/Methods: With these concerns in mind, we exploit information from a survey conducted at 619 different U.S. institutions of higher education which captured students' membership plans at matriculation. These data allow for construction of alternative treatment and control groups, and examination of whether those who always planned to join are more or less affected by membership than those who had not planned to join. We utilize both sub-sampling and instrumental variable techniques to estimate the effects of membership.

Results: We find that Greek membership increases the accumulation of several soft skills, has small negative effects on overall academic achievement, and signicantly increases alcohol consumption during college. We also find evidence that time use is the mechanism through which membership affects academic success, and that, counter to some previous research, post-graduation plans are largely unaffected.