Decreasing Time to Baccalaureate Degree in the United States

Jeffrey Denning, Eric R. Eide (), Kevin Mumford and Daniel Sabey
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Eric R. Eide: Brigham Young University
Daniel Sabey: Brigham Young University

No 14338, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: After increasing in the 1970s and 1980s, time to bachelor's degree has declined since the 1990s. We document this fact using data from three nationally representative surveys. We show that this pattern is occurring across school types and for all student types. Using administrative student records from 12 large universities, we confirm the finding and show that it is robust to alternative sample definitions. We discuss what might explain the decline in time to bachelor's degree by considering trends in student preparation, state funding, student enrollment, study time, and student employment during college.

Keywords: college graduation; time to degree (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2022, 90, 102287

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Journal Article: Decreasing time to baccalaureate degree in the United States (2022)
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