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The Changing Roles of Family Income and Academic Ability for US College Attendance

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  • Lutz Hendricks

    (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

  • Christopher Herrington

    (Virginia Commonwealth University)

  • Todd Schoellman

    (Arizona State University.)

Abstract

We harmonize the results of a number of historical studies to document changes in the patterns of who attends college over the course of the 20th century. We find that family income or socioeconomic status were more important predictors of who attended college before World War II, whereas academic ability was afterward. We construct a model that explains this change through a decline in search costs, motivated by the movement to standardize college admissions and disseminate college information in the 1950s. Our model generates the reversal in sorting seen in the data as well as several other patterns documented in the literature using primarily this single driving force.

Suggested Citation

  • Lutz Hendricks & Christopher Herrington & Todd Schoellman, 2016. "The Changing Roles of Family Income and Academic Ability for US College Attendance," Working Papers 1602, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:vcu:wpaper:1602
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David Comerford & Jose V Rodriguez Mora & Michael J Watts, 2017. "The rise of meritocracy and the inheritance of advantage," Working Papers 1716, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
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    7. Kevin Donovan & Christopher Herrington, 2019. "Factors Affecting College Attainment and Student Ability in the U.S. since 1900," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 31, pages 224-244, January.
    8. Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2014. "Explaining Educational Attainment across Countries and over Time," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 824-841, October.
    9. John Bound & Sarah Turner, 2002. "Going to War and Going to College: Did World War II and the G.I. Bill Increase Educational Attainment for Returning Veterans?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 784-815, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Manuel Macera & Hitoshi Tsujiyama, 2018. "Frictional Labor Markets, Education Choices and Wage Inequality," 2018 Meeting Papers 827, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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