IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v53y2016icp159-163.html

“(Un)informed College and Major Choice”: Verification in an alternate setting

Author

Listed:
  • Huntington-Klein, Nick

Abstract

In their recent paper “(Un)informed College and Major Choice: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data,” Hastings, Neilson, Ramirez, & Zimmerman (2016) provide an informal costly-information model, linking family background to students’ beliefs about educational costs and benefits. They verify predictions of their model using a data set of beliefs about college institutions and majors among Chilean college applicants and students. I test some of those same predictions using a data set of beliefs about college institutions and different levels of college education among high school students in the United States. I verify their predictions, with some exceptions, supporting the use of their costly-search model.

Suggested Citation

  • Huntington-Klein, Nick, 2016. "“(Un)informed College and Major Choice”: Verification in an alternate setting," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 159-163.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:53:y:2016:i:c:p:159-163
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.03.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775715302284
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.03.008?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Justine Hastings & Christopher A. Neilson & Seth D. Zimmerman, 2015. "The Effects of Earnings Disclosure on College Enrollment Decisions," Working Papers 2015-1, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    2. Hastings, Justine S. & Neilson, Christopher A. & Ramirez, Anely & Zimmerman, Seth D., 2016. "(Un)informed college and major choice: Evidence from linked survey and administrative data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 136-151.
    3. Matthew Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2015. "Determinants of College Major Choice: Identification using an Information Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 791-824.
    4. Harald Beyer & Justine Hastings & Christopher Neilson & Seth Zimmerman, 2015. "Connecting Student Loans to Labor Market Outcomes: Policy Lessons from Chile," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 508-513, May.
    5. Huntington-Klein, Nick, 2015. "Subjective and projected returns to education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 10-25.
    6. Attanasio, Orazio P. & Kaufmann, Katja M., 2014. "Education choices and returns to schooling: Mothers' and youths' subjective expectations and their role by gender," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 203-216.
    7. Eric P. Bettinger & Bridget Terry Long & Philip Oreopoulos & Lisa Sanbonmatsu, 2012. "The Role of Application Assistance and Information in College Decisions: Results from the H&R Block Fafsa Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1205-1242.
    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. Johannes S. Kunz & Kevin E. Staub, 2016. "Subjective completion beliefs and the demand for post-secondary education," ECON - Working Papers 218, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

    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. Johannes S. Kunz & Kevin E. Staub, 2016. "Subjective completion beliefs and the demand for post-secondary education," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0120, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    2. Hastings, Justine S. & Neilson, Christopher A. & Ramirez, Anely & Zimmerman, Seth D., 2016. "(Un)informed college and major choice: Evidence from linked survey and administrative data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 136-151.
    3. Avitabile, Ciro & de Hoyos, Rafael, 2018. "The heterogeneous effect of information on student performance: Evidence from a randomized control trial in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 318-348.
    4. Bonilla-Mejía, Leonardo & Bottan, Nicolas L. & Ham, Andrés, 2019. "Information policies and higher education choices experimental evidence from Colombia," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Katharina Werner, 2019. "The Role of Information for Public Preferences on Education – Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 82, April.
    6. Andrés Barrios-Fernández, 2022. "Neighbors' Effects on University Enrollment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 30-60, July.
    7. Nikoloz Kudashvili & Gega Todua, 2022. "Information, Perceived Returns and College Major Choices," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp717, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    8. Bleemer, Zachary & Zafar, Basit, 2018. "Intended college attendance: Evidence from an experiment on college returns and costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 184-211.
    9. Kunz, Johannes S. & Staub, Kevin E., 2020. "Early subjective completion beliefs and the demand for post-secondary education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 34-55.
    10. Philipp Lergetporer & Katharina Werner & Ludger Woessmann, 2021. "Does Ignorance of Economic Returns and Costs Explain the Educational Aspiration Gap? Representative Evidence from Adults and Adolescents," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(351), pages 624-670, July.
    11. Adam Altmejd & Andrés Barrios-Fernández & Marin Drlje & Joshua Goodman & Michael Hurwitz & Dejan Kovac & Christine Mulhern & Christopher Neilson & Jonathan Smith, 2021. "O Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers on College and Major Choice in Four Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1831-1886.
    12. Christopher Neilson & Adam Altmejd & Andres Barrios-Fernandez & Marin Drlje & Dejan Kovac, 2019. "Siblings' Effects on College and Major Choices: Evidence from Chile, Croatia and Sweden," Working Papers 633, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    13. Cattaneo, Maria A. & Wolter, Stefan C., 2022. "“Against all odds” Does awareness of the risk of failure matter for educational choices?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    14. Hermes, Henning & Lergetporer, Philipp & Peter, Frauke & Wiederhold, Simon, 2021. "Behavioral Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment," IZA Discussion Papers 14698, IZA Network @ LISER.
    15. Kiessling, Lukas, 2021. "How do parents perceive the returns to parenting styles and neighborhoods?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    16. Arpita Patnaik & Matthew J. Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2020. "College Majors," NBER Working Papers 27645, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Nilsson, William, 2022. "The reliability of students’ earnings expectations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    18. Marcelo Gantier & Rafael Novella & Andrea Repetto, 2024. "Subjective expectations and schooling choices in Latin America and the Caribbean," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 1593-1621, April.
    19. Henning Hermesifo & Philipp Lergetporer & Frauke Peter & Simon Wiederhold, 2025. "Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 1133-1172.
    20. Philipp Lergetporer & Katharina Werner & Ludger Woessmann, 2018. "Does Ignorance of Economic Returns and Costs Explain the Educational Aspiration Gap? Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments," CESifo Working Paper Series 7000, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education

    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:eee:ecoedu:v:53:y:2016:i:c:p:159-163. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    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.