By Julia Burdick-Will and Marc L. Stein

How does the relative ease or difficulty of public transportation affect how students choose a high school? 

In this new study, researchers examine data for Baltimore City Public Schools students between the 2014-15 and 2019-20 school years.  They find that students living in a specific residential block were less likely to list a given school as one of their high school options in years when the commute took longer or required a bus transfer. In addition, they find that in years where selective enrollment schools were easier to access from a particular residential block, more students who lived there enrolled in them.

These findings have important implications for how we think about structural barriers to educational opportunity in the era of choice. They also highlight the connections between urban infrastructure and the education system and remind us that who has access to which schools depends on how hard it is to get there.