IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jbcoan/v10y2019i3p503-553_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Catching Up Is Hard to Do: Undergraduate Prestige, Elite Graduate Programs, and the Earnings Premium

Author

Listed:
  • Hersch, Joni

Abstract

A commonly held perception is that an elite graduate degree can “scrub†a less prestigious but less costly undergraduate degree. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates from 2003 to 2017, this article examines the relationship between the status of undergraduate degrees and earnings among those with elite postbaccalaureate degrees. Few graduates of non-selective institutions earn postbaccalaureate degrees from elite institutions, and even when they do, undergraduate institutional prestige continues to be positively related to earnings overall as well as among those with specific postbaccalaureate degrees including business, law, medicine, and doctoral. Among those who earn a graduate degree from an elite institution, the present value of the earnings advantage to having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from an elite institution generally greatly exceeds any likely cost advantage from attending a less prestigious undergraduate institution.

Suggested Citation

  • Hersch, Joni, 2019. "Catching Up Is Hard to Do: Undergraduate Prestige, Elite Graduate Programs, and the Earnings Premium," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 503-553, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jbcoan:v:10:y:2019:i:3:p:503-553_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2194588819000290/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Justine S. Hastings & Christopher A. Neilson & Seth D. Zimmerman, 2013. "Are Some Degrees Worth More than Others? Evidence from college admission cutoffs in Chile," NBER Working Papers 19241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Anelli, Massimo, 2016. "The Returns to Elite College Education: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 10192, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Blomquist Glenn C. & Troske Kenneth R. & Coomes Paul A. & Jepsen Christopher & Koford Brandon C., 2014. "Estimating the social value of higher education: willingness to pay for community and technical colleges," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-39, January.
    4. Long, Mark C., 2010. "Changes in the returns to education and college quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 338-347, June.
    5. Behrman, Jere R & Rosenzweig, Mark R & Taubman, Paul, 1996. "College Choice and Wages: Estimates Using Data on Female Twins," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(4), pages 672-685, November.
    6. Lang, Kevin & Siniver, Erez, 2011. "Why is an elite undergraduate education valuable? Evidence from Israel," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 767-777.
    7. Stacy B. Dale & Alan B. Krueger, 2014. "Estimating the Effects of College Characteristics over the Career Using Administrative Earnings Data," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(2), pages 323-358.
    8. Eide, Eric & Brewer, Dominic J. & Ehrenberg, Ronald G., 1998. "Does it pay to attend an elite private college? Evidence on the effects of undergraduate college quality on graduate school attendance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 371-376, October.
    9. Serena Canaan & Pierre Mouganie, 2018. "Returns to Education Quality for Low-Skilled Students: Evidence from a Discontinuity," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 395-436.
    10. Amanda L. Griffith & Kevin N. Rask, 2016. "The Effect Of Institutional Expenditures On Employment Outcomes And Earnings," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1931-1945, October.
    11. Shelly Lundberg, 2013. "The College Type: Personality and Educational Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 421-441.
    12. Stacy Berg Dale & Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1491-1527.
    13. Dan A. Black & Jeffrey A. Smith, 2006. "Estimating the Returns to College Quality with Multiple Proxies for Quality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 701-728, July.
    14. Monks, James, 2000. "The returns to individual and college characteristics: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 279-289, June.
    15. Long, Mark C., 2008. "College quality and early adult outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 588-602, October.
    16. Dominic J. Brewer & Eric R. Eide & Ronald G. Ehrenberg, 1999. "Does It Pay to Attend an Elite Private College? Cross-Cohort Evidence on the Effects of College Type on Earnings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(1), pages 104-123.
    17. Joni Hersch, 2013. "Opting out among women with elite education," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 469-506, December.
    18. Mark Hoekstra, 2009. "The Effect of Attending the Flagship State University on Earnings: A Discontinuity-Based Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 717-724, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sharron Xuanren Wang & Arthur Sakamoto, 2021. "Can Higher Education Ameliorate Racial/Ethnic Disadvantage? An Analysis of the Wage Assimilation of College-Educated Hispanic Americans," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, April.
    2. Joni Hersch, 2023. "Gender, race, and job satisfaction of law graduates: Intersectional evidence from the National Survey of College Graduates," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), pages 339-376, June.
    3. Namingit, Sheryll & Blankenau, William & Schwab, Benjamin, 2021. "Sick and tell: A field experiment analyzing the effects of an illness-related employment gap on the callback rate," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 865-882.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hinrichs, Peter, 2014. "Affirmative action bans and college graduation rates," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 43-52.
    2. Milla, Joniada, 2017. "The Context-Bound University Selectivity Premium," IZA Discussion Papers 11025, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Long, Mark C., 2010. "Changes in the returns to education and college quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 338-347, June.
    4. Suqin Ge & Elliott Isaac & Amalia Miller, 2022. "Elite Schools and Opting In: Effects of College Selectivity on Career and Family Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(S1), pages 383-427.
    5. Suhonen, Tuomo, 2013. "Are there returns from university location in a state-funded university system?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 465-478.
    6. Broecke, Stijn, 2012. "University selectivity and earnings: Evidence from UK data on applications and admissions to university," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 96-107.
    7. Smith, Jonathan, 2013. "Ova and out: Using twins to estimate the educational returns to attending a selective college," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 166-180.
    8. Andrews, Rodney J. & Imberman, Scott A. & Lovenheim, Michael F., 2020. "Recruiting and supporting low-income, high-achieving students at flagship universities," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim, 2016. "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Trade-Off," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 3-51, March.
    10. Shomon Shamsuddin, 2016. "Berkeley or Bust? Estimating the Causal Effect of College Selectivity on Bachelor’s Degree Completion," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 57(7), pages 795-822, November.
    11. Leah Achdut & Elad Gutman & Idan Lipiner & Inbal Maayan & Noam Zussman, 2018. "The Wage Premium on Higher Education: Universities and Colleges," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2018.13, Bank of Israel.
    12. Tuomo Suhonen, 2014. "Quality of higher education and earnings: evidence from Finland using field-of-study-level quality measures," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 22-44, January.
    13. Bacalhau, Priscilla & Mattos, Enlinson & Ponczek, Vladimir Pinheiro, 2019. "College quality signaling and individual performance: effects on labor market outcomes after graduation," Textos para discussão 502, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    14. Howell, Jessica S. & Pender, Matea, 2016. "The costs and benefits of enrolling in an academically matched college," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 152-168.
    15. Jack Mountjoy & Brent Hickman, 2020. "The Returns to College(s): Estimating Value-Added and Match Effects in Higher Education," Working Papers 2020-08, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    16. Toby J. Park & Stella M. Flores & Christopher J. Ryan, 2018. "Labor Market Returns for Graduates of Hispanic-Serving Institutions," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 59(1), pages 29-53, February.
    17. David L. Sjoquist & John V. Winters, 2016. "The Effects of State Merit Aid Programs on Attendance at Elite Colleges," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(2), pages 527-549, October.
    18. Justine S. Hastings & Christopher A. Neilson & Seth D. Zimmerman, 2013. "Are Some Degrees Worth More than Others? Evidence from college admission cutoffs in Chile," NBER Working Papers 19241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Rodney J. Andrews & Scott A. Imberman & Michael F. Lovenheim, 2017. "Risky Business? The Effect of Majoring in Business on Earnings and Educational Attainment," NBER Working Papers 23575, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Philip R P Coelho & Tung Liu, 2017. "The Returns to College Education — An Analysis with College-Level Data," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 43(4), pages 604-620, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jbcoan:v:10:y:2019:i:3:p:503-553_7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/bca .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.