In view of the voluminous literature on the returns to quantity of higher education, and the determinants of quality at primary and secondary schools, it is surprising how little work has been done on the causes and consequences of college quality. This paucity of research is due in part to the difficulty in obtaining detailed information about stu-dent and institutional characteristics.'In this paper we exploit a uniquely rich data set to answer the questions: Does it matter which college you attend? If it matters, which college characteristics or other aspects of the college experience lead to a higher value-added? The present analysis applies to male college graduates only.(We quickly discovered that a very different process operates for women and this will be explored in a separate paper.)