The conversation around increasing degree attainment often focuses on helping more students from disadvantaged backgrounds get prepared for and admitted to college. But at a recent forum on Capitol Hill, the conversation shifted toward a more nuanced aspect—helping students gain admittance to the college that represents the best academic fit.

The concept is known as “match.”

During an American Youth Policy Forum event titled “College Match Matters,” Dr. Crystal Byndloss, Senior Research Associate at MDRC, presented data from the College Match Program Model in Chicago, an intervention meant to combat the problem of “undermatching”—that is, students enrolling in colleges that are less selective than the kind they are qualified to enter.

As a result of undermatching, research has shown that more students drop out of college than would otherwise because they are not being challenged, Byndloss and other panelists said.

“The bigger the challenge, the more likely you are to succeed. That’s not intuitive,” said Michael McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation and co-author of the 2009 critically acclaimed book “Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities.”

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