College Cost and Time to Complete a Degree: Evidence from Tuition Discontinuities

Pietro Garibaldi (), Francesco Giavazzi (), Andrea Ichino and Enrico Rettore

No 6106, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: For many students throughout the world the time to obtain an academic degree extends beyond the normal completion time while college tuition is typically constant during the years of enrollment. In particular, it does not increase when a student remains in a program beyond the normal completion time. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design on data from Bocconi University in Italy, this paper shows that a tuition increase of 1,000 euro in the last year of studies would reduce the probability of late graduation by 6.1 percentage points with respect to a benchmark average probability of 80%. We conclude suggesting that an upward sloping tuition profile is efficient in situations in which effort is suboptimally supplied, for instance in the presence of public subsidies to education, congestion externalities and/or peer effects.

Keywords: regression discontinuity; students' performance; tuition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
Date: 2007-02
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Working Paper: College Cost and Time to Complete a Degree: Evidence from Tuition Discontinuities (2007)
Working Paper: College Cost and Time to Complete a Degree: Evidence from Tuition Discontinuities (2007)
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