The Returns to College Persistence for Marginal Students: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from University Dismissal Policies

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ost, Ben; Pan, Weixiang; Webber, Douglas
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Chicago; University of Illinois Chicago Hospital; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Temple University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/696204
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 779-805
• 关键词: education; selection; earnings; average; birth

摘要

We estimate the returns to college using administrative data on both college enrollment and earnings. Exploiting that colleges dismiss low-performing students on the basis of exact GPA cutoffs, we use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the earnings impacts of college. Dismissal leads to a short-run increase in earnings and tuition savings, but the future fall in earnings is sufficiently large that 8 years after dismissal, persisting students have already recouped their up-front investment with an internal rate of return of 4.1%. We provide a variety of evidence that manipulation of the running variable does not drive our results.