Earnings information and public preferences for university tuition: Evidence from representative experiments

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lergetporer, Philipp; Woessmann, Ludger
• 署名单位: Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Technical University of Munich; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of Munich; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Stanford University; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104968
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: Tuition; Higher education; INFORMATION; Earnings premium; public opinion; voting

摘要

Higher education finance depends on the public's preferences for charging tuition, which may be partly based on beliefs and awareness about the university earnings premium. To test whether public support for tuition depends on earnings information, we devise survey experiments in representative samples of the German electorate (N > 15,000). The electorate is divided, with a plurality opposing tuition. Providing information on the university earnings premium raises support for tuition by 7 percentage points, turning the plurality in favor. The opposition-reducing effect persists two weeks after treatment. While there is some evidence of informationbased updating of biased beliefs, the effect seems to mainly work through increased salience which triggers reduced consideration of financial constraints when forming preferences for tuition. Information on fiscal costs and unequal access does not affect public preferences. We subject the baseline result to various experimental tests of replicability, robustness, heterogeneity, and consequentiality.