What You Do in High School Matters: High School GPA, Educational Attainment, and Labor Market Earnings as a Young Adult

Michael T French (), Jenny F Homer (), Ioana Popovici () and Philip Robins
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Michael T French: 1] Department of Sociology, University of Miami, 5202 University Drive, Merrick Building, Room 121 F, Coral Gables, FL 33124-2030, USA.
Jenny F Homer: Health Economics Research Group, Sociology Research Center, University of Miami, 5665 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA.
Ioana Popovici: Department of Sociobehavioral and Administrative Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Nova Southeastern University, 3200 South University Drive, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33328, USA.

Eastern Economic Journal, 2015, vol. 41, issue 3, 370-386

Abstract: Using abstracted grades and other data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, we investigate the relationships between cumulative high school grade point average (GPA), educational attainment, and labor market earnings among a sample of young adults (ages 24–34). We estimate several models with an extensive list of control variables and high school fixed effects. Results consistently show that high school GPA is a positive and statistically significant predictor of educational attainment and earnings in adulthood. Moreover, the coefficient estimates are large and economically important for each gender. Interesting and somewhat unexpected findings emerge for race in that, after controlling for innate ability, academic performance, and other economic and demographic variables, African Americans advance further in the formal educational system than their White counterparts. Various sensitivity tests support the stability of the core findings.

Date: 2015
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