A study by Lewis Davis, the Thomas Armstrong Professor of Economics, Stephen Schmidt, the Kenneth B Sharpe Professor of Economics, and Sophia Zacher ’21, "Covid on campus: An empirical analysis of Covid infection rates at U.S. Colleges and Universities," was featured by Inside Higher Ed.
The group's paper was recently published in the Southern Economic Journal.
Using data for the 2020-21 academic year from over 1,000 institutions, they find that COVID infection rates were higher at schools that had larger endowments, higher tuition rates, lower admission rates, and a lower share of minority students. Infection rates were also higher at public universities in states with a Republican governor. The article started as Zacher’s senior thesis project.