We investigated the impact of individuals who passed the Vietnamese imperial examinations (1075-1919) on the present-day quantity and quality of education in their home districts. We layered the 2009 Population and Housing Census and the 2009 National Entrance Exams to University (NEEU) test scores on the geographical distribution of imperial test takers’ home districts. We constructed a novel instrumental variable representing the average distance between the examinees’ home districts and the corresponding imperial examination venues. We found a persistent legacy in the average years of schooling, literacy rate, school attendance rate, NEEU test scores, and primary school dropout rate.