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The Return to College: Selection Bias and Dropout Risk

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  • Lutz Hendricks
  • Oksana Leukhina

Abstract

This paper estimates the effect of graduating from college on lifetime earnings. Motivated by the fact that nearly half of all college students fail to earn a bachelor’s degree, we study a model of risky college completion. The central idea is that students drop out of college mainly because they fail to complete the requirements for earning a degree. This introduces two levels of ability selection that reinforce each other. (i) In college, low ability students typically do not succeed academically and drop out. (ii) At the college entry stage, their poor graduation prospects deter low ability students from even attempting college. Taken together, the two levels of selection generate a large ability gap between college graduates and high school graduates. We calibrate the model to data for men born around 1960 and find that ability selection accounts for nearly half of the college lifetime earnings premium.

Suggested Citation

  • Lutz Hendricks & Oksana Leukhina, 2014. "The Return to College: Selection Bias and Dropout Risk," CESifo Working Paper Series 4733, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4733
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    1. Flavio Cunha & James Heckman & Salvador Navarro, 2005. "Separating uncertainty from heterogeneity in life cycle earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(2), pages 191-261, April.
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    3. Hendricks, Lutz & Schoellman, Todd, 2009. "Student Abilities During the Expansion of U.S. Education, 1950-2000," MPRA Paper 12798, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    5. Mark Huggett & Gustavo Ventura & Amir Yaron, 2011. "Sources of Lifetime Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2923-2954, December.
    6. Philippe Belley & Lance Lochner, 2007. "The Changing Role of Family Income and Ability in Determining Educational Achievement," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 37-89.
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    9. Jaeger, David A & Page, Marianne E, 1996. "Degrees Matter: New Evidence on Sheepskin Effects in the Returns to Education," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(4), pages 733-740, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Gonzalo Castex, 2017. "College risk and return," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 91-112, October.
    2. Kartik B. Athreya & Janice Eberly, 2013. "The supply of college-educated workers: the roles of college premia, college costs, and risk," Working Paper 13-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    3. Lutz Hendricks & Oksana Leukhina, 2017. "How Risky is College Investment?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 140-163, October.
    4. Kartik B. Athreya & Jessica Sackett Romero, 2015. "Land of Opportunity: Economic Mobility in the United States," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 2Q, pages 169-191.
    5. Kartik B. Athreya & Felicia Ionescu & Urvi Neelakantan & Ivan Vidangos, 2020. "Who Values Access to College?," Richmond Fed Economic Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 20-03, pages 1-5, March.
    6. 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.
    7. Lutz Hendricks & Oksana Leukhina, 2017. "How Risky is College Investment?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 140-163, October.
    8. Adam Blandin & Christopher Herrington, 2018. "Family Structure, Human Capital Investment, and Aggregate College Attainment," 2018 Meeting Papers 446, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Urvi Neelakantan & Ivan Vidangos & Felicia Ionescu & Kartik Athreya, 2016. "Investment Opportunities and the Sources of Lifetime Inequality," 2016 Meeting Papers 1177, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Kartik Athreya & Felicia Ionescu & Ivan Vidangos & Urvi Neelakantan, 2018. "Investment Opportunities and Economic Outcomes: Who Benefits From College and the Stock Market?," 2018 Meeting Papers 1151, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Sungwon Lee, 2020. "Identification and Confidence Regions for Treatment Effect and its Distribution under Stochastic Dominance," Working Papers 2011, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    12. Hazan, Moshe & Zoabi, Hosny & Weiss, David & Leukhina, Oksana & Bar, Michael, 2017. "Is The Market Pronatalist? Inequality, Differential Fertility, and Growth Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 12376, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. 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.
    14. Francesc Obiols-Homs & Virginia Sánchez-Marcos, 2015. "Education, Occupation-Mismatch and Unemployment," Working Papers 807, Barcelona School of Economics.
    15. Obiols-Homs, F. & Sánchez-Marcos, V., 2018. "Education outcomes and the labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 14-28.
    16. Aaron Hedlund & Grey Gordon, 2017. "Accounting for Tuition Increases at U.S. Colleges," 2017 Meeting Papers 1550, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Francesc Dilme & Fei Li:, 2012. "Dynamic Education Signaling with Dropout, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 13-048, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 03 Sep 2013.
    18. Francesc Dilme & Fei Li, 2013. "Dynamic Education Signaling with Dropout Risk, Third Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 14-014, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 24 Apr 2014.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    education; college dropout risk;

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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