Skill-Biased Technical Change and the Cost of Higher Education

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jones, John Bailey; Yang, Fang
• 署名单位: State University of New York (SUNY) System; University at Albany, SUNY; Louisiana State University System; Louisiana State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/684856
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 621-662
• 关键词: borrowing constraints; credit constraints; UNITED-STATES; college; equilibrium; GROWTH; MARKET; CONSEQUENCES; enrollment; returns

摘要

We document the growth in higher education costs and tuition over the past 50 years. To explain these trends, we develop a general equilibrium model with skill- and sector-biased technical change. Finding the model's parameters through a combination of estimation and calibration, we show that it can explain the rise in college costs between 1961 and 2009, along with the increase in college attainment and the change in the relative earnings of college graduates. The model predicts that if college costs had ceased to growafter 1961, enrollment in 2010 would have been 3%-6% higher.