Estimating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on educational outcomes for undergraduate business programs in Mexico

Abstract This paper calculates the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on educational outcomes for undergraduate business programs in Mexico. We use administrative data from the National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education and a difference-in-differences empirical strategy to estimate the impact. We find a negative effect on intake, enrollment, and graduation outcomes. We also examine heterogeneous effects, showing that top business schools increased the number of intakes with respect to non-top schools. Furthermore, public schools were more negatively impacted than private schools in terms of graduation outcomes, while synchronous-learning programs reported a higher decrease on graduation rates than asynchronous-learning programs.