Anticipatory impacts of the repeal of Roe v. Wade on female college applicants

We examined the relative impact of the anticipated repeal of Roe v. Wade on the share of female applicants to universities in states where abortion was banned compared with universities in states where abortion remained legal. Using the Common Data Sets from 71 of the top 100 institutions in the United States spanning 27 states from academic years 2018-2022, we found that there was a nearly one percentage point relative decrease in the share of female undergraduate applicants to institutions in ban states compared with states in which abortion remained legal. This suggests that undergraduate applicants are sensitive to state reproductive health policies and that this may impact the demographic composition of colleges and the future labor pool of the affected states.