Important caveat: The test in question seems to be the exit score of junior colleges, equivalent to 12th grade education. Which suggests that the discontinuity

Important caveat: The test in question seems to be the exit score of junior colleges, equivalent to 12th grade education. Which suggests that the discontinuity found might very well be due to the educational quality of the "regular" college. It would, likely, only get rid of general intelligence as confounder. This, however, would just make educational quality more pertinent rather than less. Edit: Well I found a working paper from 2011. The matter is more complex. Apparently, in India, both public and private colleges exist under the heading of a single local university. The students at private and the more prestigious public colleges then take the same exams in Bachelor. The authors have collected data from one university and a couple of colleges. For that sample, they control for ability with the entrance scores, but then match the regression discontinuity on exit scores. That is: Public colleges have on average higher exit scores. The paper shows that this is due to having stronger students (entry exams). Controlling for this, they find no difference in the "educational trajectory" of public vs. private colleges, however, public colleges then have better job outcomes. So my earlier caveat should read: The study shows results for one Indian university (with several colleges) in the field of liberal arts. Whether the study is externally valid for IITs I'll leave up to the reader.