https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=explorercafe

Is College Worth It

The Future of Accessibility in Higher Education: Making College Skills and Degrees More Accessible

While research has consistently found strong positive earnings returns to the bachelor’s degree, recent evidence also highlights heterogeneity in post-college outcomes. Combined with increases in the proportions of students borrowing to enroll, heterogeneity in college outcomes introduces the risk that some students with college degrees may experience financial hardship after graduation. Using nationally representative data on baccalaureate recipients in 1993 and 2008, this paper jointly examines labor market and debt outcomes four years after students graduate, with a focus on exploring heterogeneity by institution type and major field of study, as well as trends over time. Results confirm that the typical graduate fares well after college, both in terms of earnings and debt management. Borrowing rates and debt loads have increased substantially over time, but these substantially higher levels of debt are nonetheless manageable for the vast majority of graduates. Within this context of positive outcomes, stratification by institution type, for both earnings and debt outcomes, appears to be increasing. Similarly, while the top-earning majors have remained quite stable over time, the magnitude of the advantage of engineering, math/computer science, and business graduates has grown notably. Examining debt alongside earnings only reinforces the patterns by major: higher earning fields also have lower debt-to-earnings ratios. Overall, these patterns offer reassurance regarding the typical returns to bachelors’ degrees, even for those graduating into the Great Recession, and even in light of growing debt loads. But the results also provide evidence that students’ choices about where to attend and what to study have only become more consequential over time.

/pdf/early-labor-market-and-debt-outcomes-for-bachelor-s-degree-41xvv392r8.pdf

Early Labor Market and Debt Outcomes for Bachelor’s Degree Recipients: Heterogeneity by Institution Type and Major, and Trends Over Time

/pdf/building-career-and-technical-education-capacity-in-3layz89j5m.pdf

Building Career and Technical Education Capacity in California's Secondary Schools

Understanding the faculty experience designing, developing, and delivering massive open online courses to inform academic leaders considering mooc initiatives

Most published estimates of the economic return to college rest on a series of best-case assumptions that often overstate returns and, most importantly, obscure differences in return across different institutions. We simulate the economic return to college under more realistic assumptions using U.S. Census data combined with administrative data from the more selective University of California system and the less selective California State University system. Specifically, we adjust for delayed graduations, the probability of dropping out, progressive taxes on earned income, and risk aversion. We perform a bounding exercise for ability bias. These each reduce expected returns to a Bachelor's degree. Contrary to prior "best case" estimates, and under reasonable bounds for the ability bias, we find that the return to a college degree in 2010 could be less than the interest on unsubsidized Stafford loans. Returns are particularly modest for young men at the less-selective CSU system, largely due to high dropout rates, delayed graduation, and a lower effect on labor force participation compared to women. Our analysis begins to bridge the gap between standard estimates of the economic return to college and the institutional performance metrics reported in the Obama Administration's College Scorecard.

Dropouts, Taxes and Risk: The Economic Return to College under Realistic Assumptions

Most published estimates of the economic return to college rest on a series of best-case assumptions that often overstate returns and, most importantly, obscure differences in return across different institutions. We simulate the economic return to college under more realistic assumptions using U.S. Census data combined with administrative data from the more selective University of California system and the less selective California State University system. We find that college in 2010 is a risker investment than in earlier decades. Many students - particularly young men who cannot access top-tier universities - face an economic return on college that, while positive on average, can reasonably inspire caution among students and their parents due, in part, to high dropout rates. While our results are based on California data, we site research showing similar distinctions among higher and lower tier institutions exist nationwide. Our simulations can be seen as a natural extension of the Obama administration’s attempt to create a College Scorecard.

Raimundo Esteva

Papers

Dropouts, Taxes and Risk: The Economic Return to College under Realistic Assumptions

Is College Worth It? The Economic Return to College Adjusted for Dropouts, Taxes, and Risk