The political economy of higher education admission standards and participation gap

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: De Donder, Philippe; Martinez-Mora, Francisco
• 署名单位: University of Quebec; University of Quebec Montreal; University of Leicester
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.07.004
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1-9
• 关键词: Majority voting; Ends-against-the-middle equilibrium; Non-single-peaked preferences; Non-single-crossing preferences; Higher education participation gap; Size of university; Skill premium

摘要

We build a political economy model allowing us to shed light on the empirically observed simultaneous increase in university size and participation gap. Parents differ in income and in the ability of their unique child. They vote over the minimum ability level required to attend public universities, which are tuition free and financed by proportional income taxation. Parents can invest in private tutoring to help their child pass the admission test. A university participation gap emerges endogenously with richer parents investing more in tutoring. A unique majority voting equilibrium exists, which can be either classical or ends-against the-middle (in which case parents of both low-and high-ability children favor a smaller university). Four factors increase the university size (larger skill premium enjoyed by university graduates, smaller tutoring costs, smaller university cost per student, larger minimum ability of students), but only the former two also increase the participation gap. A more unequal parental income distribution also increases the participation gap, but barely affects the university size. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.