Mémoire d'étudiant: I investigate the impact of the higher education quota that the Malawi an government instituted in 1987. The quota allocated a number of university seats to each district which was proportional to the district’s population size. I find that the quota did not have statistically significant impacts on secondary school completion or university entry, but that it did have large and negative impacts on the relative university completion rates of historically over-represented districts and districts in the Northern region. I also find evidence to suggest that the quota may have negatively impacted the long-run decisions of northern individuals to migrate to other regions. The direction and magnitude of these effects contradicts the existing literature on affirmative action in education, and may evidence the claim that the quota was intended to harm the north in favor of the south and center. I argue that affirmative action may have unexpected consequences, and that existing educational policy and limited enforcement capacity due to information constraints have serious implications on the effectiveness of affirmative action in improving societal welfare.