Housing Costs, College Enrollment, and Student Mobility

Johannes Goehausen () and Stephan Thomsen
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Johannes Goehausen: Leibniz University of Hannover

No 16726, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the effects of rental price changes on college enrollment rates. We exploit cross-district variation in the size and timing of local rental price booms in Germany during the 2010s. A one standard deviation increase in apartment rents decreased per-capita college enrollment by 1.1 percentage points on average. The effect was driven by first-year students moving long distances and was more pronounced in less densely populated locations. Housing costs - the largest component of students' expenditures and an important location factor - have contributed to the slowdown in higher education expansion and reduced the skill-binding effect of universities, exacerbating regional inequality.

Keywords: college enrollments; housing market; apartment rents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 R21 R31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 80 pages
Date: 2024-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-ure
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