A Choice Too Far: Transit Difficulty and Early High School Transfer

The challenge of a long and difficult commute to school each day is likely to wear on students, leading some to change schools. We used administrative data from approximately 3,900 students in the Baltimore City Public School System in 2014-2015 to estimate the relationship between travel time on public transportation and school transfer during the ninth grade. We show that students who have relatively more difficult commutes are more likely to transfer than peers in the same school with less difficult commutes. Moreover, we found that when these students change schools, their newly enrolled school is substantially closer to home, requires fewer vehicle transfers, and is less likely to have been included among their initial set of school choices.