College Selectivity and Earnings

Loury, Linda Datcher; Garman, David

doi:10.1086/298375

“…This is not supported by the findings above, where the institutional SAT score affects students' chances of graduation independent of their own SAT score. In terms of an institutional effect, mean SAT score signals a host of possible factors (Bowen and Bok, 1998): an institution's wealth, as higher scores can selectively attract the best students; its provision of services to help students graduate; or the economic value of a degree, as some economists have suggested (Loury and Garman, 1995). The first two of these have been obviated by our controls for other institutional traits in our analysis (Model IX in Table 3).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black students’ graduation from elite colleges: Institutional characteristics and between-institution differences

Small

¹

,

Winship

²

2007

Social Science Research

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Among the nation's elite colleges and universities, black graduation rates vary dramatically from institution to institution. Many sociologists have suggested that this is due not to differences in the student bodies but to institutional factors; however, this ''institutional hypothesis'' has not been recently examined empirically. We test the institutional hypothesis for a set of elite institutions using College and Beyond, a restricted dataset containing data for the entire 1989 cohort of 27 elite institutions, matched to institution-level data, employing HLM techniques. We ask three questions: Do institutional factors affect black students' probability of graduation? Do they account for betweeninstitution differences in black graduation? And are institutions where blacks have a high probability of graduation the same as or different from those where whites do? Testing for the effect of eight major institutional factors, we find, surprisingly, that only selectivity has a statistically significant effect. Contrary to common belief, selectivity improves black probabilities of graduation, and helps blacks more than it helps whites. It also accounts for roughly 38% of the between-institution variance in black graduation. Finally, we find that after controls, black and white probabilities of graduation across institutions are highly correlated (.909), such that institutions in which blacks are likely to graduate are those in which whites are likely to graduate, too. Findings suggest that researchers should examine other institutional factors in greater depth, as well as the role of pre-college preparation more seriously.

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“…11 However, the return to college education varies considerably across individuals: more able students and more highly motivated students acquire more cognitive and social skills in college. 12 Loury and Garman (1995) show that college performance and ability are important determinants of future wages. Using SAT scores as a proxy for ability and using college grade point average (GPA) and choice of major as proxies for college performance, they find that there are significant positive effects of both effort and ability on future earnings.…”

Section: Earningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The return for the first two-years of college for an individual with average intellectual abilityā and average effort levelē is set to 0.16 and the total return to college is where the mean ability,ā, is 0 and the average study time,ē, is 0.4. 19 However, this is not enough information to calibrate η 1 , η 2 , µ 1 , and µ 2 . The relative weights of ability and effort on future earnings are ambiguous.…”

Section: Earningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Incentive Effects of Higher Education Subsidies on Student Effort

Şahin

¹

2004

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThis paper uses a game-theoretic model to analyze the disincentive effects of low-tuition policies on student effort. The model of parent and student responses to tuition subsidies is then calibrated using information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the High School and Beyond Sophomore Cohort: 1980-92. I find that although subsidizing tuition increases enrollment rates, it reduces student effort. This follows from the fact that a highsubsidy, low-tuition policy causes an increase in the percentage of less able and less highly motivated college graduates. Additionally-and potentially more important-all students, even the more highly motivated ones, respond to lower tuition levels by decreasing their effort levels. This study adds to the literature on the enrollment effects of low-tuition policies by demonstrating how high-subsidy, low-tuition policies have both disincentive effects on students' study time and adverse affects on human capital accumulation.

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“…As a result, the number of minority students who receive bachelor's degrees in the state of Texas may also have experienced a decline. This, in turn, can exacerbate social and economic inequalities between white and minority groups given that college selectivity has been related to increased earnings, particularly for minorities (Brewer, Eide, and Ehrenberg, 1999;Daniel, Black, and Smith, 1995;Hoxby, 1998;Loury and Garman, 1995). And so far, the Top 10% plan does not seem to be a tool that can help reverse this trend.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minority Enrollments at Public Universities of Diverse Selectivity Levels Under Different Admission Regimes: The Case of Texas

Alfonso¹,

Calcagno²

2007

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The views and interpretations in this document are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank, or to any individual acting on its behalf. This paper may be freely reproduced provided credit is given to the Research Department, InterAmerican Development Bank. Terms of use: Documents inThe Research Department (RES) produces a quarterly newsletter, IDEA (Ideas for Development in the Americas), as well as working papers and books on diverse economic issues. To obtain a complete list of RES publications, and read or download them please visit our web site at:http://www.iadb.org/res. 3 Abstract 1This study describes how minority enrollment probabilities respond to changes in admission policies from affirmative-action to merit-only programs and then to percentage plans when the demographic composition of the potential pool of applicants is also shifting. It takes advantage of admission policy changes that occurred in the state of Texas with the Hopwood and HB588 decisions and of a unique administrative dataset that includes applications, admissions, and enrollments for three public universities of different selectivity levels. The findings suggest that the elimination of affirmative action and the introduction of the Top 10% plan had differential effects on minority enrollment probabilities as well as on application behavior depending on the selectivity level of the postsecondary institution. In particular, Hopwood is related to shifts in minority enrollments from selective institutions to less selective ones as the cascading hypothesis predicts. And although the Top 10% plan seems to have helped increased minority enrollment probabilities at the selective college as the upgrading hypothesis predicts, once the increases in minority shares among highschool graduates are taken into account, we find that the Top 10% plan can no longer be related to improvements in minority representation at selective universities.

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College Selectivity and Earnings

Cited by 256 publications

References 4 publications

Black students’ graduation from elite colleges: Institutional characteristics and between-institution differences

Black students’ graduation from elite colleges: Institutional characteristics and between-institution differences

The Incentive Effects of Higher Education Subsidies on Student Effort

Minority Enrollments at Public Universities of Diverse Selectivity Levels Under Different Admission Regimes: The Case of Texas

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