From the Classroom to the Ballot Box: Turnout and Partisan Consequences of Education

We estimate the impact of education on voter turnout and partisanship using a regression discontinuity design based on school-entry cutoffs and exact date of birth. Drawing on nationwide administrative voter registration data, we find that individuals who were slotted to enter school one year earlier are more likely to vote and more likely to register as independents. These reduced-form effects may be driven by changes in educational attainment or by differences in the quality of individuals’ educational experiences. We leverage age-related heterogeneity in effect sizes to isolate the role of educational attainment. Our results imply that an additional year of schooling increases turnout by about 3 percentage points.