University Matching Mechanism in Greece: Evaluation of the Proposed Government Reforms

Abstract: Matching mechanisms have been extensively used to address school choice problems worldwide. By setting up a matching model, we analyse the matching mechanism applied in Greek university admission, the Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm, by describing its desirable properties and its empirical implications. In this context, we evaluate the proposed government reforms on the properties of the mechanism, namely a weighting-factor on student choices and a location-based criterion. We conclude that the weighting-factor would violate strategy-proofness and the matching would be wasteful, whereas the location-based criterion would maintain the algorithm's desirable properties and contribute towards the alleviation of the financial burden of families.