IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7452.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Going to War and Going to College: Did World War II and the G.I. Bill Increase Educational Attainment for Returning Veterans?

Author

Listed:
  • John Bound
  • Sarah E. Turner

Abstract

The end of World War II brought a flood of returning veterans to America's colleges and universities. Yet, despite widespread rhetoric about the democratization' of higher education that came with this large pool of students, there is little evidence about the question of whether military service, combined with the availability of post-war educational benefits, led these men to increase their investments in education - particularly at the college and university level. This paper uses the structure of the draft during the World War II period and the changing manpower requirements in the armed forces to address the effects of selection in comparisons of the educational attainment of veterans and nonveterans in this era. Using census data, our results indicate that the net effects of military service and the widely available funding for college through the G.I. Bill led to a moderate gain in the postsecondary educational attainment of World War II veterans.

Suggested Citation

  • John Bound & Sarah E. Turner, 1999. "Going to War and Going to College: Did World War II and the G.I. Bill Increase Educational Attainment for Returning Veterans?," NBER Working Papers 7452, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7452
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7452.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Turner, Sarah & Bound, John, 2003. "Closing the Gap or Widening the Divide: The Effects of the G.I. Bill and World War II on the Educational Outcomes of Black Americans," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 145-177, March.
    2. Angrist, Joshua D, 1990. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 313-336, June.
    3. Thomas Lemieux & David Card, 2001. "Education, earnings, and the ‘Canadian G.I. Bill’," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 313-344, May.
    4. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    5. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1.
    6. Angrist, Joshua D., 1991. "Grouped-data estimation and testing in simple labor-supply models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2-3), pages 243-266, February.
    7. Susan M. Dynarski, 2003. "Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 279-288, March.
    8. Joshua D. Angrist, 1990. "The Effect of Veterans Benefits on Veterans' Education and Earnings," NBER Working Papers 3492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. James Heckman & Lance Lochner & Christopher Taber, 1998. "Explaining Rising Wage Inequality: Explanations With A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model of Labor Earnings With Heterogeneous Agents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(1), pages 1-58, January.
    10. Joshua D. Angrist, 1993. "The Effect of Veterans Benefits on Education and Earnings," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(4), pages 637-652, July.
    11. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Kane, Thomas J, 1994. "College Entry by Blacks since 1970: The Role of College Costs, Family Background, and the Returns to Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 878-911, October.
    13. Angrist, Joshua & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Why Do World War II Veterans Earn More Than Nonveterans?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 74-97, January.
    14. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    15. Claudia Goldin & Robert A. Margo, 1992. "The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 1-34.
    16. Goldin, Claudia D. & Margo, Robert, 1992. "The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid- Century," Scholarly Articles 30703979, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    17. Angrist, Joshua D, 1990. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records: Errata," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1284-1286, December.
    18. Heckman, James J. & Robb, Richard Jr., 1985. "Alternative methods for evaluating the impact of interventions : An overview," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 239-267.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. van der Klaauw, Bas, 2014. "From micro data to causality: Forty years of empirical labor economics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 88-97.
    2. Joshua D. Angrist & Stacey H. Chen, 2007. "Long-term consequences of vietnam-era conscription: schooling, experience, and earnings," NBER Working Papers 13411, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    4. Cornelissen, Thomas & Dustmann, Christian & Raute, Anna & Schönberg, Uta, 2016. "From LATE to MTE: Alternative methods for the evaluation of policy interventions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 47-60.
    5. Eric Maurin & Theodora Xenogiani, 2007. "Demand for Education and Labor Market Outcomes: Lessons from the Abolition of Compulsory Conscription in France," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(4).
    6. Mazzutti, Caio Cícero Toledo Piza da Costa, 2016. "Three essays on the causal impacts of child labour laws in Brazil," Economics PhD Theses 0616, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    7. Belzil, Christian, 2007. "The return to schooling in structural dynamic models: a survey," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 1059-1105, July.
    8. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Thomas Crossley, 2003. "Econometrics for Evaluations: An Introduction to Recent Developments," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 79(247), pages 491-511, December.
    9. Zoltan Hermann & Hedvig Horvath & Attila Lindner, 2022. "Answering Causal Questions Using Observational Data - Achievements of the 2021 Nobel Laureates in Economics," Financial and Economic Review, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 21(1), pages 141-163.
    10. Heckman, James J. & Jacobs, Bas, 2009. "Policies to Create and Destroy Human Capital in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 4680, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Resul Cesur & Joseph J. Sabia & Erdal Tekin, 2020. "Post-9/11 War Deployments Increased Crime among Veterans," NBER Working Papers 27279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Ryan D. Edwards, 2010. "Health, Income, and the Timing of Education Among Military Retirees," NBER Working Papers 15778, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Berger, Johannes & Strohner, Ludwig, 2020. "Documentation of the PUblic Policy Model for Austria and other European countries (PUMA)," Research Papers 11, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Anna Piil Damm, 2009. "Ethnic Enclaves and Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes: Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 281-314, April.
    15. Manuel Denzer, 2019. "Estimating Causal Effects in Binary Response Models with Binary Endogenous Explanatory Variables - A Comparison of Possible Estimators," Working Papers 1916, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    16. Brian Duncan & Hani Mansour & Bryson Rintala, 2019. "Weighing The Military Option: The Effects Of Wartime Conditions On Investments In Human Capital," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 264-282, January.
    17. Balestra, Simone & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2017. "Heterogeneous returns to education over the wage distribution: Who profits the most?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 89-105.
    18. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2012. "Evaluating the labor-market effects of compulsory military service," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 814-829.
    19. Markus Frölich, 2004. "Programme Evaluation with Multiple Treatments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 181-224, April.
    20. Tobias Klein, 2013. "College education and wages in the U.K.: estimating conditional average structural functions in nonadditive models with binary endogenous variables," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 135-161, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:nbr:nberwo:7452. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.