Students? heterogeneous preferences and the uneven spatial distribution of colleges

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fu, Chao; Guo, Junjie; Smith, Adam J.; Sorensen, Alan
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2022.03.001
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 49-64
• 关键词: Higher education; College competition; Geography of opportunity

摘要

The uneven geographic distribution of colleges in the United States endows students with uneven access to colleges depending on where they live. To examine the implication of this for student welfare, we estimate a model of high school students' college choices, allowing for rich heterogeneity in students' preferences for college attributes. We use data on students' enrollment decisions and application decisions-i.e., the sets of colleges to which they applied-to identify the distribution of students' preferences, and find that place indeed matters: the expected value of applying to college differs dramatically across states and across counties within a state.(c) 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V.