Geographic and Socioeconomic Patterns of Interprovincial First-Time Placements to Foundation Universities in Türkiye

This study examines geographic and socioeconomic patterns in interprovincial first-time placements to foundation universities in 12 destination provinces in Türkiye in 2024. The analysis distinguishes four mutually exclusive groups: undergraduate scholarship, undergraduate fee-paying, associate-degree scholarship, and associate-degree fee-paying placements. Destination-specific count models assessed group-specific associations with logarithmic road distance, average years of schooling, unemployment, and logarithmic GDP per capita in origin provinces, using the natural logarithm of the population aged 18–24 as an offset, with standard errors clustered by origin province. Direct coefficient contrasts, residual spatial diagnostics, and sensitivity analyses were conducted, with Benjamini–Hochberg correction applied within specified test families. In the main analysis, distance was significantly negatively associated with placement rates in 41 of 48 destination–group combinations. Socioeconomic associations were less widespread and varied across destinations, placement groups, and model specifications. Eleven of 192 two-way slope contrasts were significant, five involving particularly sparse groups, providing little evidence of systematic differences by scholarship status or programme level. Negative distance associations persisted in many sensitivity specifications, although spatial filtering substantially changed estimates in some destinations. Spatial filters captured much of the same geographic variation as distance, making changes in the distance estimates difficult to interpret. These province-level associations describe realised placements and do not establish individual access or causal effects.