The Indirect Effects of Educational Expansions: Evidence from a Large Enrollment Increase in University Majors

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bianchi, Nicola
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/706050
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 767-804
• 关键词: quality

摘要

Increasing access to education may have consequences that go beyond effects on marginal students encouraged to enroll. It may change peer effects, school quality, and returns to skill. This paper studies how classmates and teaching inputs affect learning of university students, exploiting an educational expansion in Italian STEM majors. Newly collected data on 27,236 students indicate that less prepared classmates and congestion of teaching resources lowered learning of incumbent students in STEM fields. Their learning, however, increased in courses in which the new classmates raised average preparedness. These effects might have had long-lasting consequences on the returns to STEM degrees.