Cognitive skills, personality, and economic preferences in collegiate success

•We measure demographics, personality, cognitive skills, and economic preferences.•We study college graduation (on time; at all) and final grade point average.•The proactive aspect of Conscientiousness strongly predicts all outcomes.•We also use a novel cognitive skill measure, a backward induction/planning test.•This predicts both college graduation and vocational success among truckers. We collected multiple measures from 100 students at a small public undergraduate liberal arts college in the Midwestern US and later assessed their academic success. The “proactive” (hard-working, persistent) aspect of the Big Five trait of Conscientiousness and not its “inhibitive” (organized, careful) aspect is a large positive predictor for two graduation outcomes and grade point average (GPA). The Big Five trait of Agreeableness (“pro-sociality”) is a large and negative predictor for graduation outcomes. A non-standard cognitive skill measure (a backward-induction game) positively predicts graduation outcomes, in parallel with its success in predicting vocational student job success (Burks et al., 2009). Patient time preferences predict one graduation outcome and GPA.