IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/rwirep/404.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Tuition Fees on Student Enrollment and Location Choice – Interregional Migration, Border Effects and Gender Differences

Author

Listed:
  • Alecke, Björn
  • Burgard, Claudia
  • Mitze, Timo

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of tuition fees on the university enrollment and location decision of high school graduates in Germany. After a Federal Constitutional Court decision in 2005, 7 out of 16 German federal states introduced tuition fees for higher education. In the empirical analysis, we use the variation over time and across regions in this institutional change in order to isolate the causal effect of tuition fees on student enrollment and migration. Controlling for a range of regional- and university-specific effects, our results from Difference-in-Differences estimations show that there is generally no effect of tuition fees on internal enrollment rates. However, we find a redirecting effect on first-year students' migratory behavior as indicated by a signicant drop in the gross in-migration rates in fee-charging states. Further, our results point at a stronger migration response of male students, which, however, can mainly be attributed to a 'border effect'. That is, interregional migration flows of male students are redirected from fee-charging universities to those universities that are geographically close by while being located in a non-charging neighboring state. Controlling for these border effects, the relocating trend in long-distance migration of university freshmen does not show any particular gender differences.

Suggested Citation

  • Alecke, Björn & Burgard, Claudia & Mitze, Timo, 2013. "The Effect of Tuition Fees on Student Enrollment and Location Choice – Interregional Migration, Border Effects and Gender Differences," Ruhr Economic Papers 404, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:404
    DOI: 10.4419/86788459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/70772/1/737512830.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4419/86788459?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dwenger, Nadja & Storck, Johanna & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2012. "Do tuition fees affect the mobility of university applicants? Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 155-167.
    2. Alessandra Faggian & Philip McCann & Stephen Sheppard, 2007. "Some Evidence That Women Are More Mobile Than Men: Gender Differences In U.K. Graduate Migration Behavior," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 517-539, August.
    3. Bruce Chapman & Mathias Sinning, 2014. "Student loan reforms for German higher education: financing tuition fees," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(6), pages 569-588, December.
    4. Gary S. Becker & William H. J. Hubbard & Kevin M. Murphy, 2010. "Explaining the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of Women," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 203-241.
    5. Edward Baryla & Douglas Dotterweich, 2001. "Student Migration: Do Significant Factors Vary by Region?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 269-280.
    6. Burgard, Claudia & Grave, Barbara S., 2013. "Does it Pay Off to Incentivize Universities? – Performance Funding in the German Higher Education System," Ruhr Economic Papers 457, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    7. Gary S. Becker & William H. J. Hubbard & Kevin M. Murphy, 2010. "Explaining the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of Women," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 203-241.
    8. Mchugh, Richard & Morgan, James N., 1984. "The determinants of interstate student migration: a place-to-place analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 269-278, August.
    9. Pekkarinen, Tuomas, 2012. "Gender Differences in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 6390, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Björn Alecke & Timo Mitze, 2012. "Studiengebühren und das Wanderungsverhalten von Studienanfängern: eine panel-ökonometrische Wirkungsanalyse," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 13(4), pages 357-386, November.
    11. James P. LeSage & R. Kelley Pace, 2008. "Spatial Econometric Modeling Of Origin‐Destination Flows," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 941-967, December.
    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. Michel Beine & Marco Delogu & Lionel Ragot, 2017. "Understanding the Impact of Tuition Fees in Foreign Education: the Case of the UK," Working Papers hal-04141620, HAL.
    2. Michel Beine & Marco Delogu & Lionel Ragot, 2020. "The role of fees in foreign education: evidence from Italy [Determinants of international student migration]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 571-600.
    3. Yash Daultani & Ashish Dwivedi & Saurabh Pratap, 2021. "Benchmarking higher education institutes using data envelopment analysis: capturing perceptions of prospective engineering students," OPSEARCH, Springer;Operational Research Society of India, vol. 58(4), pages 773-789, December.
    4. Beine, Michel & Peri, Giovanni & Raux, Morgan, 2023. "International college students’ impact on the US skilled labor supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    5. Michel Beine & Marco Delogu & Lionel Ragot, 2017. "The Role of Fees in Foreign Education: Evidence From Italy and the United Kingdom," Working Papers 2017-04, CEPII research center.
    6. Léonard Moulin & David Flacher & Hugo Harari-Kermadec, 2016. "Tuition fees and social segregation: lessons from a natural experiment at the University of Paris 9-Dauphine," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(40), pages 3861-3876, August.
    7. Ilya Prakhov & Maria Bocharova, 2016. "Socio-Economic Predictors of Student Mobility," HSE Working papers WP BRP 34/EDU/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    8. Neeraj Kaushal & Mauro Lanati, 2019. "International Student Mobility: Growth and Dispersion," NBER Working Papers 25921, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ralf Minor, 2023. "How tuition fees affected student enrollment at higher education institutions: the aftermath of a German quasi-experiment," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 57(1), pages 1-19, December.

    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. Björn Alecke & Claudia Burgard & Timo Mitze, 2013. "The Effect of Tuition Fees on Student Enrollment and Location Choice – Interregional Migration, Border Effects and Gender Differences," Ruhr Economic Papers 0404, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    2. repec:zbw:rwirep:0404 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Sibbertsen, Philipp & Stöver, Britta, 2017. "Die räumliche Flexibilität von Studierenden - Gründe für das Wanderungsverhalten von Studienanfänger/-innen zwischen den Bundesländern," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-604, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    4. Ilya Prakhov & Maria Bocharova, 2016. "Socio-Economic Predictors of Student Mobility," HSE Working papers WP BRP 34/EDU/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Kathryn R. Dotzel, 2017. "Do natural amenities influence undergraduate student migration decisions?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 59(3), pages 677-705, November.
    6. Bruckmeier Kerstin & Fischer Georg-Benedikt & Wigger Berthold U., 2015. "Studiengebühren in Deutschland: Lehren aus einem gescheiterten Experiment," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 289-301, October.
    7. Reinhard A. Weisser, 2020. "How Personality Shapes Study Location Choices," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 61(1), pages 88-116, February.
    8. Pekkarinen, Tuomas, 2012. "Gender Differences in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 6390, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Philipp Gareis & Tom Broekel, 2022. "The Spatial Patterns of Student Mobility Before, During and After the Bologna Process in Germany," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 113(3), pages 290-309, July.
    10. Antosik, Liubov & Ivashina, Natalya, 2019. "Modeling of spatial dependence in the migration flows of graduates of the higher education institutions of the Russian Federation," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 54, pages 70-89.
    11. M. Keith Chen & Judith A. Chevalier, 2012. "Are Women Overinvesting in Education? Evidence from the Medical Profession," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(2), pages 124-149.
    12. Ashworth, Jared & Ransom, Tyler, 2019. "Has the college wage premium continued to rise? Evidence from multiple U.S. surveys," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 149-154.
    13. Brenøe, Anne Ardila & Lundberg, Shelly, 2018. "Gender gaps in the effects of childhood family environment: Do they persist into adulthood?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 42-62.
    14. Hanzhe Zhang, 2021. "An Investment-and-Marriage Model with Differential Fecundity: On the College Gender Gap," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(5), pages 1464-1486.
    15. Xiaodong Fan & Hanming Fang & Simen Markussen, 2015. "Mothers' Employment and Children's Educational Gender Gap," NBER Working Papers 21183, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Riphahn & Caroline Schwientek, 2015. "What drives the reversal of the gender education gap? Evidence from Germany," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(53), pages 5748-5775, November.
    17. Bruckmeier, Kerstin & Wigger, Berthold U., 2014. "The effects of tuition fees on transition from high school to university in Germany," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 14-23.
    18. Golsteyn, Bart H.H. & Schils, Trudie, 2014. "Gender gaps in primary school achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 176-187.
    19. Kelly Bedard & Allison Witman, 2020. "Family structure and the gender gap in ADHD," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 1101-1129, December.
    20. Michael Kaganovich & Morgan Taylor & Ruli Xiao, 2023. "Gender Differences in Persistence in a Field of Study: This Isn’t All about Grades," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 503-556.
    21. Ori Zax, 2015. "Human Capital And The Probability Of Divorce," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(S1), pages 111-134, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tuition fees; gender differences; higher education; student migration; policy evaluation; Difference-in-Differences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    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:zbw:rwirep:404. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rwiesde.html .

    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.