Integer programming methods for special college admissions problems

authors: Kolos Csaba Ágoston (Department of Operations Research and Actuarial Sciences, Corvinus University of Budapest), Péter Biró (Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Department of Operations Research and Actuarial Sciences, Corvinus University of Budapest), Iain McBride (School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow)

We develop Integer Programming (IP) solutions for some special college admission problems arising from the Hungarian higher education admission scheme. We focus on four special features, namely the solution concept of stable score-limits, the presence of lower and common quotas, and paired applications. We note that each of the latter three special feature makes the college admissions problem NP-hard to solve. Currently, a heuristic based on the Gale-Shapley algorithm is being used in the Hungarian application. The IP methods that we propose are not only interesting theoretically, but may also serve as an alternative solution concept for this practical application, and other similar applications. We finish the paper by presenting a simulation using the 2008 data of the Hungarian higher education admission scheme.

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Alternative title:	Egészértékű programozási módszer speciális egyetemi felvételi problémák megoldására
Year of publication:	October 2016
Authors:	Ágoston, Kolos Csaba ; Biró, Péter ; McBride, Iain
Publisher:	Budapest : Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Subject:	College admissions problem \| integer programming \| stable score-limits \| lower quotas \| common quotas \| paired applications \| simulations \| Theorie \| Theory \| Ganzzahlige Optimierung \| Integer programming \| Mathematische Optimierung \| Mathematical programming \| Studium \| University education \| Hochschule \| Higher education institution \| Simulation \| Matching