A model of student's dilemma

TL;DR

This paper presents a multi-agent evolutionary model analyzing students' educational choices, predicting phase transitions, impacts on university capacity, and the presence of underprivileged students at elite institutions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-agent evolutionary framework to model students' educational dilemmas and predicts complex societal and institutional dynamics.

Findings

Transition between stratified and homogeneous phases

Decreased university capacity reduces applicant numbers

Presence of poor students at elite universities

Abstract

Each year perhaps millions of young people face the following dilemma: should I continue my education or rather start working with already acquired skills. Right decision must take into account somebody's own abilities, accessibility to education institutions, competition, and potential benefits. A multi-agent, evolutionary model of this dilemma predicts a transition between stratified and homogeneous phases, evolution that diminishes fitness, fewer applicants per seat for decreased capacity of the university, and presence of poor students at \'elite universities.