Calidad institucional y rendimiento académico
This article aims to provide empirical evidence on the determinants of the academic performance of university students in Colombia’s Caribbean region, particularly with regard to the results obtained in the areas of Administration, Accounting, Economics, Law, Engineering and Medicine, as well as in the Bachelor’s Degree test on Saber Pro — ProLearn 2009—, which was presented by 22,525 students from 41 universities in Colombia’s Caribbean-region states (Atlantico, Bolivar, Cesar, Magdalena, Cordoba, La Guajira and Sucre) through a multilevel modeling framework. Several findings are of particular interest with a view to providing an explanation on academic performance, such as: the “university effect,” determined by individual institutional quality, the weak explanatory power regarding the socioeconomic status of the students, and gender gaps found in the different areas of study covered.