School Choice Enrollment Systems in Large U.S. Cities: Implications for Integration and Equitable Access

December 18, 2025 | By Jon Valant, Jane Arnold Lincove, Nicolas Zerbino

Many cities have adopted unified enrollment (UE) systems that centralize the school choice application and assignment process. We examine the proliferation of these systems in large U.S. cities, focusing on whether adopting UE affects integration or access. We use Callaway and Sant’Anna difference-in-differences (CSDID) models to test if UE implementation changes systemwide racial and ethnic segregation levels. We then use comparative interrupted time series (CITS) models to test if UE changes enrollment patterns in schools that were disproportionately White before UE. We find little evidence of immediate effects. However, over time, we see incremental reductions in segregation and increases in nonwhite enrollment in schools where these students had been underrepresented.