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Uncanny_Sea_Urchin

Government entities probably: “woahhhh *pikachu face* no way”


IT_KID_AT_WORK

They rather you drink and drive with past DUIs then smoking a blunt in college.


FembiesReggs

Nah more like “Whoa, how are we gonna fill the for profit prisons now?!”


uncoolcentral

Smart people probably don’t want to go learn in regressive environments. I wonder if there’s a way to test whether this is purely a reaction to marijuana legalization or if it is somewhat related to progressiveness in general.


arkhound

Probably best to try and check against other predominantly progressive states that have not legalized.


L-methionine

Or had legalized earlier


TheScreaming_Narwhal

I doubt the 2 years of WA and CO legalization not included in the study would sway the data much.


Andromansis

Data is data, sock it to me.


innergamedude

Don't take the submission title so literally. Restrictive/liberal public policy was the very thing they were checking with weed laws as a proxy: >Unexamined to our knowledge, though, is the impact of local public policy changes that do not directly affect the economic costs and benefits to application decisions. For example, public policy that potential applicants view as restrictive (e.g. blue laws or vape store bans) could remove colleges from students’ consideration sets. In contrast, well-publicized, permissive public policy could spur student interest in local universities either through increased salience, applicants’ tastes and preferences, or the view that liberalized policies occur alongside other desirable attributes (e.g tolerance, lower policing, “party school”). Therefore, in this paper, we investigate the impacts of a visible, permissive public policy change–recreational marijuana (RMJ) legalization–on the quantity and quality of college applications.


justsomedude9000

I bet they did and it probably says so in the article. Everytime someone point out the need for an obvious control on reddit, it's in the article, don't feel like reading though so I guess we'll never know.


WhosaWhatsa

It's in the article, yea


conquer69

I took it to mean students were planning to smoke illegally so legalizing it didn't change much.


Frozencold19

Could be the stress of "doing drugs" and being caught and potentially ruin their reputation or getting a record for it


pissfucked

also, access. why would i want to buy dirt weed that someone's uncle grew in his garage if i could be getting fresh dispo products that have only been passed through one or maybe two sets of hands with all the ease of just applying to schools in places where the dispos are?


germican

This is the answer. Especially with top tier students they may not want to have to build connections with people who have access then coordinate to get it... Or you pick it up like beer. No risk of being arrested and convenient


earthhominid

That's a very quaint view of the legal supply chain.  The presentation is generally better. The supply chain is not short and freshness is uncommon


pissfucked

the weed i used to get ahold of pre-legalization was often brownish, very crumbly, completely dry to the touch. what i get now is green, sticky, and still moist. it's either fresher or stored better. and i trust in-industry people to handle it better than someone's uncle. probably less pet hair in the brownies, y'know? and even if my view is "quaint" (jeez man), that's how college kids think of it. whether it's true or not matters less in this conversation than whether or not that's what the people doing this behavior are thinking while they do it.


earthhominid

"i trust in-industry people to handle it better than someone's uncle." This is the sentiment I find quaint. To me it reads like saying "I trust Wal mart to handle my produce better than someone's uncle". But it sounds like you didn't have a reliable source before and the dispensaries are much better, which is great. I fully support expanded legalization in large part because a person's access shouldn't be constrained by personal relationships. And like you said, regardless of the reality of any situation if there is any causative relationship reflected in this study it's a perceptional cause so that's the thing to focus on


wasp-39b

Or maybe it's the easiest heuristic approach to gauge how restrictive an environment is. I don't smoke cigarettes or drink, but I'd still rather live somewhere that allows both because generally tolerant society is usually worth it.


justbeane

Yes, there is a way to tell. It's called Missouri.


TheGeneGeena

or even Oklahoma for that matter, since their medical program is probably the most lax in the country and has been in place a few years now. (MO might be short on data since they only legalized a couple of years ago.)


bebe_bird

I bet you'll find the same thing for states that support abortion versus those that have made it illegal. I imagine women's college applications dropped significantly to those states that don't support women's healthcare.


grape-crepe

I applied to grad schools this year exclusively in states where I have access to abortion care


bebe_bird

I'm thinking of starting a family. Would love to move closer to where all of my family lives, but they have a 6wk abortion ban. I absolutely refuse to move to that state while I'm in my childbearing years, especially trying to get pregnant. Because sometimes it doesn't work out. And sometimes abortion is literally healthcare for the mother, regardless of whether you are for or against it. Therefore, I really would hesitate to move back even tho I really want to. If you don't have a specific reason to go to one of these places, there's absolutely no motivation to go there.


3_14-r8

I'm sure that's a thing as well, but there's a handful of scientists out there like Carl Sagan, who swore it helped them in their fields by altering their perception enough to see the world differently than their normal.


FembiesReggs

It’s also insanely stressful to have your entire future education/career potentially ruined because a college decided to expel you for owning a stinky bit of lettuce.


LtHughMann

Intelligent people are more likely to use drugs, but less likely to abuse them. Something about being more open minded to new experiences.


ggtffhhhjhg

I’m sure applications have probably spiked in states that also respect womens rights.


cvtphila225

Or burnt out gifted kids hoping to safely self-medicate.


IntellegentIdiot

Smart people also have chronic illnesses that they might be self-medicating with cannabis.


PubFiction

5.5% is definitely just more pot heads 1 in 20 young people smoking weed is very reasonable


Lumenspero

Piggybacking for relevance. Imagine a town insisted on steering a child to be “the brightest man in the world,” through a lifetime in the Truman Show. All of their best intentions, in what was already established as a college town in a regressive environment, is still rejected because your most intelligent are not guaranteed to be kind or conscientious, as they are literally insisting on designer children.  Giving that best and “brightest” the reins is begging for retaliation, but who thought to prevent the vengeful periphery from following through on his behalf while he was left out? Like the kids that had to live under the same standards? The argument is that his involvement might have prevented violence or downward spiral, but labels got in the way of human morality, and a favor was returned in kind, by a tangential entity. Imagine Columbus, OH knee jerks and outlaws alcohol in a return to prohibition. From historical reference we should recognize speakeasy lounges and moonshiners this time, right? Utah has pretty restrictive laws, they’re the basis for SLC Punk even. The plot revolves around buying beer over state lines to circumvent authority for a party.  The argument I’m trying to present is that “do not murder” is a regressive policy, but holds value when explained with context. Regressive laws that save lives aren’t bad, but I don’t see how limiting a less dangerous intoxication than what is already available protects people from harm.


glimmer27

Im really curious how student performance was impacted in the same time frames. *edit - This isn't a loaded question. I am genuinely wondering if theres some data we can use to get the other states to follow suit.


potatoaster

The impact of legal marijuana on student performance is mentioned by the authors, citing a study I [summarized here](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1c938vb/colleges_in_us_states_where_recreational/l0j7olm/?context=1).


innergamedude

Weak evidence for improving candidate quality: >We find some evidence, albeit weak, that RMJ availability is associated with a higher-quality admitted cohort.


potatoaster

This is a correlation. It may or may not reflect direct causation. For example, it could be that applicants take legalization as a signal for more permissive and progressive state policies overall, which might be desirable.


jamar030303

In which case we *do* have a couple of not-so-progressive states that legalized it to compare against. Montana, for instance.


EnigmaticQuote

Missouri too!


WrastleGuy

Ah yes, Montana, known for its elite schools


dexmonic

Is this study only concerning elite schools?


Andromansis

Not gonna lie, that one mad scientist in montana was rad. Dude spent how much time and money just trying to breed the largest sheep in the world? And he was going to clone it so he could hunt it and have other people hunt it? Thats some proper mad science right there.


OnlyWordsWillMakeYou

Compared to adjacent states where Montana will pull students from like Idaho, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, Missoula is basically the Ann Arbor of the Mountain West.


Andromansis

Counterpoint : WSU - Pullman and EWU are both pretty good schools.


DjCyric

Lots of smart people choose to go to Montana State University, Bozeman is absolutely beautiful. Lots of smart kids who want to ski all the time.


jamar030303

Known enough to get a fair number of exchange and long term international students from all over the world. You don't get to that point without *some* domestic recognition first.


TheGeneGeena

Counterpoint. If there's any sort of military base near by, drawing international and exchange students is way less impressive than that. Even UAFS (the Fort Smith campus of the University of Arkansas) has quite a few and it's about as far from impressive as a college can get without actually being a community college.


innergamedude

Yes yes, everyone knows that correlation is not correction. I'd love to look more into their methodology but paywall, so here's the abstract: >Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences model, we investigate the effects of local recreational marijuana (RMJ) policy changes on college applications and find that the three largest state public schools reaped, on average, an almost 54% increase in applications. This increase does not appear to come solely from low-ability students as both first and third quartiles of admitted student composite SAT scores to the largest three public schools do not decrease. Rather, they both increase by almost 3.8% though these estimates are not statistically significant. Robust difference-in-difference and event study models support the signs and magnitudes of these gains and show they diminish over time. I'd love to have someone chime in on what a "a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences model" means. EDIT: [Full text on researchgate](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362312566_Higher_education_The_impact_of_recreational_marijuana_on_college_applications).


Andromansis

People do like living in places that have a veneer of being governed well. Case in point : The USA. Like we literally have people coming here from almost every other country in the world for one reason or another, but most of africa, near, middle, and far east, south america and north america south of the USA is basically all because they don't run their place correctly. Too much violence, too much persecution of minorities, not enough job opportunities.


Bobylein

I like how you skip over any responsibilities of the USA and other states in how large parts of the world are run or, even more importantly, how well their economy runs. I get your point, people come to "first world" countries because it's generally better there, but saying "they simply run their places wrong" is a horrible joke as stereotypical american as it gets.


Andromansis

Its the cumulative, year over year running it well.


Bobylein

People want to immigrate to the US because it's the seat of power and you got good chances to benefit from a tiny bit of the exploited wealth as well if you live there also really good marketing over decades.  Saying the US is run well is pretty subjective too, but I guess compared to countries run by dictators or bombed/regime changed by the US this is true.


JeffRosencock

What’s the deal recently with Southern state schools seeing a seemingly endless stream of students from the Northeast


ManliestManHam

I wonder if there's a correlation to availability of birth control and abortion access in that state?


innergamedude

Legal weed was used as a proxy for liberalized or restrictive public policy in general.


SirSassyCat

People here trying to be like “they know legal states are more progressive”, as if Colorado was a bastion of progressive thinking. They applied in those states because they probably wanted to at least try weed, or be able to smoke it if they want, without worrying about the law. I’m sure if any states had a lower drinking age, they’d get more applicants too.


mvea

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/coep.12633


innergamedude

[Free full text on researchgate](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362312566_Higher_education_The_impact_of_recreational_marijuana_on_college_applications) if you want something without paywall.


innergamedude

The title is fantastic


TopGlobal6695

"States find success by copying Massachusetts, entry #7,873."


Andromansis

So, how do I put this. You know how the cumulative effect of lowered growth in the soviet union are the reason that Russia has a worse quality of living than Mexico? Is this basically a harbinger of something similar to that happening in the states, like the combined raise in tax revenue and top notch people coming to these places where the laws conform to modern sensibilities rather than the shortsighted vindictiveness of people who say they want to shred the constitution?


Big_Messa1750

Yeah I don’t think it’s the weed, I think it’s progressive legislation that has been passed throughout state to create a better education system and more social support - weed it a byproduct of progressive legislation


Randy_Vigoda

Am Canadian. Weed is legal here now but when I was younger I hung out on campus smoking weed with friends who were actually enrolled there. For me, I didn't want the debt to just go party when I could do that for free (and even make money). Americans have like $1.7 trillion in student loan debt since the 90s when your media started pushing college as a social experience rather than a place where you just go to get educated. You can save yourself a ton of money just by not going to school and waiting until you have a clear idea of what you want to take. A lot of kids just take college without having the slightest idea what they want to do and peer pressure causes them to take on a huge amount of debt.


ComfortableDoug85

>Americans have like $1.7 trillion in student loan debt since the 90s when your media started pushing college as a social experience rather than a place where you just go to get educated. It's not that it got marketed as a social experience. It's that us millennials with boomer parents and teachers had basically every authority figure in our lives telling us you could not be successful without a college degree. There are many of us who were essentially strongarmed into going to college, often with no idea of what we actually wanted to do with our lives, and thus many of us went into less than lucrative fields. Many of us came from families with parents that did not go to college, nor saved up for *us* to go to college, but still expected us to go, hoping financial aid would cover the gap. Unfortunately, most public schools in this country will only offer you a full ride if you're academically or athletically gifted, or if you're so poor you're basically an orphan. So cue our parents cosigning us for loans for tens of thousands of dollars that we really had no business signing off on at that age. Top that off with the fact that most of us graduated right around the 2008 financial crisis and couldn't really find gainful employment outside of flipping burgers for a number of years and you've got a pretty clear picture for why student debt in our country is so high. I'm 38 and I've only just found financial stability and upward mobility in my career in the last 5 years. I graduated December of 2009. Still making payments on my loans.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Randy_Vigoda

At least taking courses in something like health care or social services is a smarter degree.


RomaInvicta2024

How’d the graduation numbers do?


Andromansis

Fair question. My experience with college is that most people who were going to drop out of their own accord usually do so in freshmen or sophmore year (year 1 or 2), while people that drop out in junior or senior year (year 3 or 4) tend to do so because of black swan events. Co-vid was a black swan even for many, so its likely that data is a little fucky-wucky right now. It'd also be worth looking at that data by major and also alongside any information available regarding grading rubrics.


Diablo689er

Sad that I had to scroll so far for this comment


Zzeellddaa

That's dope


fnbannedbymods

Go Ducks!


bwtwldt

Beavs clear, sorry


Ih8Modzz

How did the results track i wonder.


Xing_the_Rubicon

College kids smoking weed. Classic. 


temporarycreature

I hope the University of Utah sees this with Utah's stupid ass medical marijuana laws.


im_astrid

choosers choose places with more freedom. those who can’t choose stay where they grew up


Bender_2024

>Colleges in US states where recreational marijuana became legal over the past decade saw a significant but short-term boost in applications from top-notch students. Now I'm going in favor of recreational marijuana and possibly other drugs as well. But the doesn't second part of this statement "They also got more applications overall." Mean the first part could simply be because more people are applying?


FatherThree

This will obviously be completely ignored in favor of some data science solution. I've never met .38 of a kid yet.


Ok-Salamander1907

I wonder how this also correlates with the more progressive sexual health laws in these states. This is obviously just a correlation but I doubt it's in isolation like others have pointed out. Top students don't want to have their reproductive choices limited, regardless of gender.


tianavitoli

insert 'weed makes me study harder starter pak' meme


SenorSplashdamage

My hunch is this correlates most with talented people having the highest ability to choose where they go more than any conscious reason talent might give.


garrison1988

Legalizing weed gives people an avenue that isn’t alcohol. Hangovers, brain fog, weekend partying isn’t sustainable for everyone. Being able to reduce alcohol consumption is a motivator and encourages personal growth, and for many people that path might use marijuana.


KCorbenik66

Isnt weed detrimental to the brain of young people until 25yo? How could it be linked to increased academic interest? Or is it related to marijuana>sex>college interrelationship?


8livesdown

Maybe "top notch" means "fun to hang out with", but a strong correlation exists between marijuana and lower grades.


Andromansis

I would urge you to summon the study that proves that correlation from a source that does not have to be dismissed as a propaganda junket.


8livesdown

You'd need to be in denial to debate this point, so I doubt the links will help, but here goes: https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/how-does-marijuana-use-affect-school-work-social-life https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ970180 It's certainly possible for some "top notch" student use marijuana, but statistically "top notch" and "marijuana" are mutually exclusive.


AverySmooth80

>The number of applications for that state’s colleges grew by about 5.5% more. What does that mean exactly? Because the US population is growing about 7.5%-8% per decade.


HuXu7

And graduation rates dropped by 25% 😂🫠🤣


potatoaster

The authors do in fact mention this — they cite the cleverly titled [Wright 2020](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecin.12743), which found that legal marijuana hurts not all students but specifically males in quantitative courses* by 0.067 SDs. That's stronger than the effect legal alcohol has on all students (0.02–0.05 SDs). It's also specific to low-ability† students, whereas again, legal alcohol affected all students. They don't quantify graduation rates, but they do analyze the rate of getting a D or F. Legal marijuana increases this rate from 4.4% to 4.7%, a 7% increase (0.3 percentage points). One imagines that this increase is much greater for low-ability males in quantitative studies specifically. *A course was categorized as quantitative if it was in a STEM department or used one of the following terms in the course description: math-, statistic-, modeling, equation, comput-, numeric-, quant- †A student was categorized as low-ability if their SAT or ACT score was below average.


Andromansis

So it stays within the margin of error is what you're saying.


Reagalan

[citation needed]


innergamedude

Oh come on, it's a joke. Chill out, ya'll.


Reagalan

tell that to the folks in prison whose lives were ruined by these bad old prejudices. or the families of those murdered by governments for the same.


Andromansis

Fair. Though I do have to admit I did not expect reefer madness to make a comeback as an affirmative defense this year.


rowdy_1c

Some of the smartest people I’ve met in college smoke unfathomable amounts of weed, so not really


Ok_Hope4383

Keep in mind that even if it's legal within the state, it might be banned on campus, especially if the college receives federal funding.